Apostasy
by Laora
Summary: Amy Dylandy loses her entire family to a suicide bomber when she is eleven years old. When she's recruited as a Gundam Meister, years later, her only goal is to ensure no one else suffers the same fate.
1. Chapter 1

_So I know Amy gets all of three seconds of screentime in the show, but I've been planning a (different) AU for a couple of years where she features prominently, and then suddenly she's a main character in my head. I'd say send help, but I love her too much to have regrets._

 _If you're like me and enjoy having music associated with characters/fics, you should definitely check out The Dirt Whispered by Rise Against for Amy and this fic._

 _This fic is super, **super** self-indulgent, but I really hope you all like it anyway!_

* * *

Amy Dylandy is sure her life has never been so unfair.

She's up early, dressed in her school uniform, while Neil and Lyle are still fast asleep. Their high school has an in-service today, so they get the day off; her middle school, on the other hand, is in session. On her _birthday,_ of all days, and she has failed in begging a free day off from her parents many times in the last week. She deserves a day off too, she argues. It's her birthday—she shouldn't be the only one who has to go to school! Even her dad, who usually works long hours at the hospital, has gotten the day off to celebrate once she's home from school.

It's not _fair,_ but no matter what she says her mother refuses to let her skip school—so she's sitting at the kitchen table, pouting, with her backpack at her feet and a half-eaten breakfast before her. Her mother smiles sympathetically as she pours herself a mug of coffee, sitting across from her.

"It's a Friday," she says, and Amy grunts. "Once I pick you up from school, we'll come home and open presents, all right? I'll make lasagna for dinner, and I think your dad said something about triple chocolate cake…"

She hesitates, slightly mollified at the mention of her favorite dinner and favorite dessert, but—"It's not fair," she mutters. "Why don't Lyle and Neil have to go to school?"

"You'll be able to see your friends, too," her mother says, and doesn't answer the question—after all, they both know Amy knows the answer. "You'll be home before you know it, I promise! And there will be plenty of days you get off that Neil and Lyle need to go to school."

She grunts again, scuffing the toe of her shoe against the table leg as she glances up to her mum. She looks tired, but eager to make her feel better—and Amy frowns for a moment longer before huffing, shoving a forkful of eggs into her mouth. "Promise?" she says, and her mum quirks an eyebrow. "That we'll do presents as soon as we get home."

She laughs into her mug, her eyes squinting a bit in humor as she nods to Amy. "I promise."

.

.

School that morning is…well, school, and Amy isn't terribly enthused about any of it, despite the birthday wishes she gets from her friends. Many of them are planning to come over tomorrow night for a small party, promised by her dad ("Eleven's a big year!" he said with a grin, ruffling her hair the way she hates before she left this morning), and she's certainly looking forward to that, but…school is school. By the time she steps out of her mum's car, waving goodbye and rolling her eyes as she blows her a kiss from the driver's seat, Amy's ready to be done with today.

After lunch, she's even more eager to be home—and struggles to pay attention in class and take notes as she should. She's usually a good student, and after lunch she even has her most interesting classes—history, science, and technology—but she's impatient, ready to start celebrating her birthday properly.

She's distracted, but not too distracted to notice the shift in her teachers' moods. She writes off Mr. Simpson's pale face and red eyes as a cold, though it's clear something is bothering him, as he wipes at his eyes several times during class. But when both Mrs. Chatham and Mrs. Buford look similarly out of sorts and distracted, pulling out their phones the moment the bell rings, she starts to worry if something's wrong.

She's not the only one, it seems; as she meets her friend Anna by her locker, her face is pinched in worry, too, and she asks Amy if she knows what's going on.

"No idea," she says, but is gratified to hear that she's not the only one. "I'll ask Dad when we get home, he'll probably know."

Anna makes a noise of agreement, throwing the last of her books into her bag before walking up with Amy to the front of school. She usually spends an hour or so in the after-school program, as both her parents work—and so Amy gives her a hug before parting ways, walking alone toward the roundabout in front of school, expecting to see her mum's minivan ready and waiting to take her home.

It isn't there.

She frowns, doing another once-over of the cars lined up and waiting, but she's certain her mum's isn't here. Rather upset, she plants herself on a bench, crossing her arms and waiting for her mother to show up.

A few of her friends are still waiting, too, and join her, grumbling and wondering what the problem is. It's a Friday, after all—and their parents are always good about showing up on time. Amy's mum, especially, needs to be a couple miles away soon after to pick up her brothers—and is notoriously punctual, cutting short any conversation Amy might be having to ensure she's on time retrieving Neil and Lyle.

But her mum isn't here, and as the minutes stretch on, her frustration starts to turn into worry and honest distress. It's her _birthday,_ and everyone promised to start celebrating as soon as she came home! Her friends, still waiting on their own parents, promise her that they've just lost track of time, or are planning a surprise for her that's taking longer than intended.

Their parents, when they ultimately show up, offer a more practical answer: traffic is awful, and an entire city block a couple miles away has been walled off by the military. None of them say why (though that same worry Amy saw on her teachers' faces is mirrored here), and as her friends slowly get picked up and she is left alone, she finds herself rubbing tears from her eyes, huddled on the bench by herself.

A few minutes after her friend Jimmy is picked up (leaving her with a long, tight hug, promising to see her tomorrow and that his present for her would make up for the wait), one of the women from the front office comes out to find her. "Amy," she calls tentatively, and she turns, wondering whether her parents have called the office to say they're very sorry that they're late but they're on their way right now. "Would you like to wait in the cafeteria for your parents? I can let them know where you are, once they get here."

"Mum said she'd be here as soon as school got out," she says, wiping again at her eyes. "It's my _birthday,_ we're supposed to be celebrating…"

The woman's face falls (she knows Amy's mum well, with all of the volunteering she tends to do for school functions), but she reaches out a hand to help her up. "I'm sure she'll be here soon," she says kindly, "but wouldn't you prefer to wait inside? I'll come and get you as soon as she shows up, I promise."

Amy hesitates before taking her hand, readjusting her backpack straps and following her inside to the cafeteria. She sees Anna nearby and walks quickly toward her, again wiping tears from her eyes. She's being silly, she knows, but her mum _promised_ , and she's starting to get scared; she's never been this late before.

"Amy?" Anna says as she walks up, blinking at her in surprise. "Why're you still here?"

"Mum hasn't shown up yet," she says quietly, dropping into the seat opposite her. She doesn't want to pull out her own homework, because she's sure her mum will be here any second—so she just crosses her arms on the table and rests her head on them. "I dunno where she is."

Anna's face falls in concern, and she pushes her own homework away to lean toward Amy. "I bet they're planning a surprise," she says, though she sounds more hopeful than sure. "I mean, your mum's really good about being on time, right?"

"Yeah," she says, even more quietly. "But it's been almost an hour, she shouldn't…"

Anna frowns, worry obvious on her face, but can't seem to find anything to say to that. The two of them sit in silence for several minutes longer; Anna eventually pulls her homework forward again, but Amy finds her hands shaking too much to even think about doing the same. She only sits, staring blankly at the tabletop, and waits for her mum to come and tell her that everything's all right.

.

.

Half an hour later, Anna's mum arrives to pick her up, and the after-school program is closing, and Amy has never been so scared in all her life.

"Amy?" Mrs. Holmes looks exhausted, like she usually does, but she's surprised to see her there. "Have you heard from your parents?"

"No," she says, and this time can't keep up with the tears falling down her face. Mrs. Holmes' frown deepens, and she promises to be right back, hurrying back toward the front office.

Only a couple minutes later she returns, looking extremely worried but nodding to Amy. "You can come home with us, if you want," she says. "We can call your parents from there, too. I'm sure everything's fine…"

She trails off, frowning at nothing for a moment—but just as quickly, it's gone, and Amy does not care enough to ask what it means. "Okay," she says tentatively. Mrs. Holmes and her mum are good friends, after all, and she and Anna spend a lot of time at each other's houses. She doesn't think she'll get in trouble for going home with them when she doesn't have any other choice.

Mrs. Holmes seems relieved by this, smiles at her though there is something on her face that Amy cannot make out, and leads them out to her car.

Amy scarcely notices the car ride home, staring out the window listlessly as Anna and her mom talk. There's a huge plume of smoke a couple blocks away, and she frowns at it, wondering what might have caused it. She asks Mrs. Holmes, cutting off their conversation abruptly, and she glances that way, obviously worried as she hesitates to answer.

"There was…some sort of explosion at the mall, according to the news," she says, and Amy's stomach flips. An explosion? Their city has always been quiet, and Amy has never worried about even biking by herself to the corner store. Something so violent has never even crossed her mind. "The military is saying it's contained, but they're diverting traffic quite a ways out."

Amy makes a noise but doesn't respond, and Mrs. Holmes looks at her with concern in the rear-view mirror—but she says nothing more about it, and the rest of the drive to their house is spent in silence.

Mr. Holmes arrives home about the same time with Anna's younger siblings, but Amy avoids them all and heads straight for the landline in the kitchen, pulling it from the wall and dialing her mother's phone number from memory.

Mrs. Holmes comes up beside her as she listens to it ring, and Amy waits impatiently, her stomach twisting as she waits to hear why her mother completely forgot to pick her up from school. _On her birthday,_ no less, and she feels justified in her anger—

But her mother's phone rings to voicemail, and Amy listens to the recording rather numbly before hanging up, staring at the phone for a moment before slowly punching in her dad's number, instead. He's always really good about answering his phone—a habit of being on call for the hospital, he says—and so surely…

But her father doesn't pick up either—and Neil and Lyle are similarly ignoring her, their phones ringing one after the other to voicemail. By the time she hangs up after trying her mother's phone again, the tears are falling thick down her cheeks—and most of Anna's family is crowded nearby, clearly worried.

"Do you have phone numbers for anyone else in your family?" Mrs. Holmes asks gently, putting a hand on Amy's shoulder that she scarcely notices. "Your Aunt Kathryn lives in town too, right?"

"Yeah," she says, very quietly, and reaches for her backpack, dumped unceremoniously at her feet, to find her emergency contact sheet. A few moments later she's dialed Aunt Kathryn's number, holding the phone close to hear ear with both shaking hands, trying to contain her sobs.

The line connects after two rings, and she cannot keep a high-pitched sob from escaping her throat.

"Hello?" And yes, that's her aunt's voice, hoarse and worried, and Amy needs to swallow a couple of times before she's able to respond.

"Aunt Kathryn?"

"Amy?" She sounds relieved— _desperately_ relieved—and Amy frowns despite her tears, wondering what's going on. "Are you with your parents and brothers?"

"No…" she says slowly. "Mum—she didn't pick me up from school, and I had to go home with my friend Anna because everything closed down, and…"

She trails off, sobbing into her sweater sleeve, and hears Aunt Kathryn breathing slowly on the other end of the phone. "You were at school today?" her aunt asks, and Amy nods, even though she can't see her. "Do you know where your family is?"

"No," she says, anger suddenly flaring, because it's _her_ birthday and Mum promised—she _promised_ —that they would have lasagna and cake tonight but now they aren't answering their phones, and they forgot to pick her up at school, and—"Mum promised we'd celebrate my birthday but I don't know where she is, and—and…"

What composure she might have left crumbles away, and Amy finds herself hysterical, leaning against the kitchen counter as she sobs. Mrs. Holmes steps toward her, concern on her face and in her voice though Amy cannot decipher the words she's saying, and she knows she's being ridiculous—she's _eleven,_ now, and needs to start acting like it—but she has not seen her parents since this morning and her brothers since last night, and she wanted to celebrate her birthday, that's all she wanted, but now—

"Amy," Aunt Kathryn says loudly into her ear, and Amy tries to settle herself, tries to listen, because maybe her aunt—"I'm sorry, I'm just—everything's all right. How about you spend the night at Anna's house, and—and we'll come pick you up in the morning?"

"No!" She knows she sounds like a child, but—"Mum said we would have lasagna and cake tonight, and Lyle promised we could play video games, and—"

"Amy," Aunt Kathryn cuts her off, and Amy blinks, because her aunt never interrupts her like that. "Are Anna's parents there? Can I talk to them for a second?"

Her voice cracks, and Amy frowns, but Aunt Kathryn is starting to scare her; she holds the phone out to Mrs. Holmes wordlessly, and she frowns down at her in serious concern before taking the phone, glancing to the crowd around her before disappearing across the house. Amy watches her go, wishing desperately that she knew what was going on.

Anna is standing nearby, her arms crossed tightly across her chest as she stares in worry at Amy. Mr. Holmes hesitates before corralling Anna's younger siblings with promises of a board game, pulling their prying eyes away from a still-hysterical Amy. She appreciates it but at the same time doesn't want to be alone—and when Anna hesitantly suggests they go sit on the couch instead, she accepts in an instant, grasping her friend's hand tightly when she offers it.

They sit in silence for a couple of minutes before Mrs. Holmes reappears; her eyes are a little red, and her hands are shaking as she holds the phone before her. "Amy," she says, and tries very hard to keep her voice level though Amy can see through it easily, "your aunt says you need to stay here tonight. We can make you lasagna and a cake, if you want, but—she said she won't be able to pick you up until the morning."

"Why's she picking me up?" she demands. "Where are Mum and Dad?"

Mrs. Holmes doesn't say anything for a moment, is breathing steadily through her nose as she stares a little past Amy and Anna. "Everything's all right," she says after a moment, looking back to them, though her tone says otherwise. "Your aunt just—it would really help her, if you stayed here. I'm sorry, I know it's not how you wanted your birthday to go, but I'm sure everyone will make it up to you this weekend, right?"

Amy wants to argue—this is unfair, and she thinks she has a right to know where her parents and brothers are. But she also recognizes that Mrs. Holmes is very upset, and it was obvious that Aunt Kathryn was distressed, on the phone. And even if Amy's upset too, Mrs. Holmes looks on the verge of tears—and she's a full-grown adult. She knows it takes more to make adults cry, and this is just worrisome enough to give her pause.

Her mum always tells her to do right by other people, and if her staying the night will make Mrs. Holmes feel better, she will do so.

"All right," she says, slowly, and Mrs. Holmes swallows thickly and smiles at her, stepping to engulf both her and Amy in a hug before disappearing into the kitchen.

.

.

They do have lasagna for dinner that night (though it's not nearly as good as Dad's), and Mr. Holmes goes out to buy her a chocolate cake, and Anna gives her the present she was meant to get at her birthday party. It's an okay night, but it's her _birthday,_ and she does not know where her family is—and she's up early the next morning, wearing borrowed clothes from Anna as she waits impatiently for Aunt Kathryn to pick her up.

Mrs. Holmes is sitting at the kitchen table with her phone in hand, a mug cooling on the table. She jumps badly when Amy greets her, stowing her phone away as she approaches. It doesn't look like she's slept at all, tonight, and despite her own worry, Amy frowns as she sits opposite her, dropping her backpack by her feet. "Is everything okay?" she asks tentatively. "I—uh, thank you, for my birthday last night. It was really nice."

Because it was—and Anna's parents went out of their way to ensure it, even when she's not their daughter, even when they had no warning that they needed to celebrate. "It wasn't a problem at all," Mrs. Holmes says, smiling tentatively at her though her eyes seem unusually bright. "I know it wasn't what you wanted, but I'm sure everything will be cleared up soon."

"What's going on?" she asks (she hopes not too harshly), because she is scared, and she misses her parents and her brothers, and after everything that happened yesterday, she thinks she should be told what's happened. But Mrs. Holmes only shakes her head and grips her mug a little tighter.

"I'm not sure, hun. Your aunt didn't seem to know, either—but I'm sure everything will be straightened out today. You don't need to worry."

"I miss Mum and Dad," she mutters, looking at the tabletop. "And Lyle and Neil. Are they gonna be back today?"

Mrs. Holmes looks up sharply at her, staring for a few seconds before looking again into her mug. "I'm sure they will be," she says quietly.

.

.

The doorbell rings an hour or so later, and Amy is up like a shot, rushing to the door to answer it. Maybe it's her aunt; even better, maybe it's her parents, full of apologies and love and ready to celebrate her birthday—a day late, but right now, she will forgive them even this if it means she can see them again. Mrs. Holmes stands, following quickly behind her, but Amy is the one to swing the door open without even looking at the security cam, and—

It's Aunt Kathryn, which she _should_ be glad for, because she will finally have answers as to what happened yesterday. But she's a little disappointed that her mum and dad aren't here too—and Aunt Kathryn watches her deflate with something like despair on her face.

"Amy, we should go," she says, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she blinks up at her, wondering what the rush is. "Thank you for watching her," she says to Mrs. Holmes, behind Amy, and she turns to see her standing there, her arms crossed close over her chest and her eyes far too bright.

"It was no trouble," Mrs. Holmes says. "If—if you need anything else, please, let us know."

"Thank you," Aunt Kathryn says, and then guides Amy gently out the door to her car, parked in the driveway. Amy, still a little confused and clutching her backpack by one strap, turns to wave at Mrs. Holmes, who has one hand covering her mouth as she turns away, not seeing Amy's farewell at all. Amy frowns at her as she closes the door, as her aunt points her to the backseat of the car. "What's going on?" she demands, as soon as they're buckled in and heading down the street. "Where are Mum and Dad?"

Aunt Kathryn does not answer immediately, though what Amy can see of her is tense, scared, so much like Mrs. Holmes has been since last night. "I'll explain once we get back to my house," she says, and Amy frowns.

"We're not going to _our_ house? Why not?" There is something wrong, here—something like a secret the adults are keeping from her, something they don't want her to know. And all she knows right now is that they're keeping her away from her parents, and she won't let that stand. She won't—

"It's just a temporary thing," Aunt Kathryn says, and the words are reassuring, but her tone is anything but. "I said, I'll explain once we're back."

Amy is scared but Aunt Kathryn's tone does not allow room for argument; she only hunches in on herself a little more, still clutching her backpack's strap, and tries to figure out what's going on. She desperately wants to ask where her family is, but Aunt Kathryn made it clear she doesn't want to talk right now. Her vision starts to blur with tears and she tries to blink them away—reaching up with a shaking hand to wipe at her eyes when that fails. Aunt Kathryn glances to her in the mirror, her brow furrowed in worry, but she says nothing else until they pull into her driveway, several minutes later.

"We're home," Aunt Kathryn calls into the house as she unlocks the front door, and Amy's cousin Teresa—a few years older than Neil and Lyle—appears from the living room, her eyes red and puffy as she stares between her mother and Amy.

"What's wrong?" Amy asks her, worried, and Teresa swallows before glancing to her mum.

"Why don't we go sit in the living room," Aunt Kathryn suggests, her voice quiet, and Teresa nods clumsily, staring at Amy for a moment longer before turning and leading the way. Amy follows behind, dropping her backpack absentmindedly by the coffee table, and sits close to her cousin on the couch, still wondering why she's so upset. Asking again probably won't do anything to help, though, so Amy sits quietly and waits for her aunt to say something.

"Amy," Aunt Kathryn starts after several moments of silence, and she looks up at her expectantly. "There was—an explosion, at the mall yesterday afternoon."

"I know, Mrs. Holmes said," she says, vaguely upset by the fact that the mall will probably be closed for a while to repair the damage—she was going to ask to go shopping this weekend with her birthday money. But, after all, she's glad that her aunt seems willing to get her up to speed. "What happened? Was anyone hurt?"

Teresa sobs beside her, and Amy spares her a concerned glance before returning her attention to Aunt Kathryn. "Yes," she says, very quietly. "A lot of people were hurt."

Amy blinks, uncertainty and dread filling her gut as she watches her aunt's hands wring themselves dry, as she listens to her cousin try to stifle her sobs. "What…happened?" she asks after a moment, suddenly starting to wonder if the small, contained explosion she's envisioning isn't correct after all.

"The military says it's too early to say," she says. "It could have been a gas leak, but it…it also could have been a bomb."

Amy's mind spins around this idea, unable to land on it properly, because—a _bomb,_ here in their hometown? The place her parents always prided on being peaceful and kind? "What?" she asks, and it comes out more as a rasp than anything else.

"The explosion leveled most of the building," Aunt Kathryn says, her voice just as low. "There were a lot of people inside, and the military says they're still getting life signs, but a lot of people—were killed, by the blast."

The horror pooling in her gut is rising, and Amy feels suddenly nauseous as she starts to understand what her aunt is trying to tell her. "Why would…"

She is horrified by this but at the same time realizes there is something missing, and it has to do with her cousin's abject misery, with her impromptu birthday at a friend's house because her parents never picked her up from school. "We're not sure of anything yet, but—Amy." Here, her voice cracks, and she needs to wipe at her face before she can continue. "Yesterday, did your parents say anything about going to the mall?"

.

.

Aunt Kathryn and Teresa try and keep her away from the news, every television and radio and online broadcast—local and national and even international—that's been discussing the explosion since the moment it happened. But even if Amy doesn't have her own phone, she nicks Teresa's old tablet that never gets used, charges it up, and against even her own better judgment, starts searching for news related to the incident.

Other member countries of the AEU have promised aid and intelligence work to determine whether it was a deliberate attack or an unfortunate accident. The president has come down from Dublin, giving some inspiring speech that Amy has no interest in listening to. The military has been working non-stop, day and night, with dogs and machines to try and find survivors and—and identify bodies.

There have been a lot of them, she knows, even though she does not have the stomach to read the details. There is a list of nearly 400 missing, compiled by the public that weekend, and Amy checks it compulsively, scrolling down to see her entire family listed neatly among complete strangers.

All 400 of them can't be dead, she tries to reassure herself—she's sure her family is just…just trapped, like the important military man said many were, waiting patiently for the government to rescue them. And then they will come home and hug her and assure her that everything will be all right—because the explosion wasn't a bomb at all (as many tacticians seem to suspect) but just an awful accident, and even if the death toll has been rising steadily all weekend, they are all right, perfectly fine, and—

But Aunt Kathryn told her how none of them are answering their phones, and how their house is locked up but clearly empty, and Amy realizes that they must have gone to the mall together but that doesn't mean— _can't_ mean—

School is in session on Monday but Aunt Kathryn tells her she doesn't need to go. It's just as well, she decides. She heard her aunt talking quietly to someone on the phone—Mrs. Holmes, she thought—on Saturday morning, asking her to tell the rest of Amy's friends that her birthday party needs to be cancelled. She's sure her friends will be worried—even more so when she does not come to school—but she spends a lot of her time this weekend trying (and failing) not to cry, and school sounds utterly overwhelming.

The death toll continues to rise; it's approaching 100 by Monday afternoon, and the list of the missing still contains almost 250 names. She's lying in bed, curled on her side and staring listlessly at the tablet, trying to decide whether getting up to get some food is worth the effort, when _BREAKING NEWS_ flashes across the top of the screen. She blinks and hesitantly taps it, wondering whether this is about the explosion, and her breathing stutters as she reads the headline.

"Terrorist group KPSA claims responsibility for massive bombing in Waterford," it tells her—and nothing else, thus far, and it's just as well because Amy wouldn't have been able to read it anyway. A terrorist group—this was a deliberate attack, not a gas leak or some awful accident. All those people ( _not_ her family) were killed by terrorists, and—

Her scream chokes into sobs, as she shoves the tablet off Aunt Kathryn's guest bed, as she shoves her face into a pillow. Why would people do this to each other? Who would look at a peaceful, happy city and decide it needed to be blown up with a bomb?

Aunt Kathryn refused to drive her by the mall, even when they eventually go back to her house to at least grab some extra clothes and her favorite stuffed animals—even after the surrounding streets were deemed safe and traffic resumed. But she found pictures easily enough in the news articles, and it's true—there is nothing left of the mall she used to love visiting. And her parents and brothers were ( _are_ ) in that collapsed building, and it has been three days since the bombing, and—

And she is only eleven but she is not stupid, and she knows that three days in a collapsed mall is a long time, especially if you're hurt. Aunt Kathryn has tried to stay optimistic for her, but she can see the distress on her face easily (and on Teresa's, as she doesn't bother to go to school either), and—and she is not stupid, but they are her _parents_ and her _brothers_ and so they cannot be dead—

.

.

Except that they are, and Amy's world falls to pieces the next evening when her aunt answers the door to two solemn-faced military men.

Amy's in the living room but follows her aunt out to the front hall when the doorbell rings. Aunt Kathryn frowns at her, as if meaning to send her back, but Amy stands her ground, her shaking fists at her sides, and her aunt eventually sighs, only moving to open the door.

Amy gasps as the porch light illuminates the men, their sharp blue uniforms in contrast with their pale, exhausted faces. "Kathryn O'Brien?" the older one asks formally, as Amy looks on.

Her aunt swears under her breath, glancing to Amy again before turning back to the soldiers. "What do you want?" she asks, maybe a little harshly, but neither of them seem to mind.

"I'm very sorry to have to tell you this," the man says, glancing to Amy as well with a little frown, "but we have positively identified four bodies from the wreckage of the mall as your sister, her husband, and her two sons. The AEU—"

The man keeps talking; Amy can see his mouth move, can see Aunt Kathryn crumple beside her, but—this man means nothing to her; his words mean nothing; and she desperately wants to slam the door in his face and block out what he's saying. As if—as if that'll do anything to change the truth.

"I don't want your money," Aunt Kathryn snarls, breaking through Amy's muddled thoughts, and when she looks up, she realizes her aunt is holding onto the doorframe for support. She's—mum is dead. She's _dead,_ even though she promised they'd celebrate her birthday as soon as she got home from school, and blew her a kiss at drop-off even though Amy scoffed, and—

 _Her mum is dead_ , and her dad is dead, and Neil and Lyle and oh _God—_

"If there's nothing else, _leave,_ " Aunt Kathryn says harshly, making to close the door in their faces. The younger man takes a tentative step forward, glancing, unsure, to Amy, and through her blurring vision she sees for the first time the cardboard box he carries in his arms.

"Are you Amelia?" he asks, his tone a little softer, and Amy does not even have the presence of mind to correct him. No one, not even her parents when she's in trouble, calls her by her full name, and—

And they're not going to call her by any name again because—

"She is," Aunt Kathryn snaps, stepping in front of her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "If you would _excuse_ us—"

"We—the military—we thought you might want to have this," he says, much less formal than his superior, and glances to him as if for permission before holding the box out to Amy. "One of your brothers—he was holding it."

Amy blinks at the box, uncomprehending, and Aunt Kathryn eventually takes it, lifting the lid and looking inside briefly before all but slamming the lid shut. "We appreciate it," she says haltingly, stepping away from the door, pulling Amy by the shoulder. "Now leave."

The older officer inclines his head, and then Aunt Kathryn shuts the door in their faces, standing in the front hall for several seconds and looking down at the box in her hands. She takes a few unsteady steps toward the living room before changing direction quickly, disappearing into her bedroom down the hall.

Amy stares blankly after her, not even considering following or making her own way to the living room, until Aunt Kathryn returns—and stops when she sees Amy exactly where she left her. She hesitates before her face crumples, closing the distance between them and pulling Amy into a crushing hug.

It's several seconds before Amy finds the strength to return the hug, and several seconds longer before she realizes she's crying.

.

.

Amy returns to school a couple of weeks later, and returns to her parents' house to move her things to Aunt Kathryn's and help sort through her family's, but she doesn't start living again for quite a long time after.

The first time she re-enters her old house, after the funerals, she's sick on the carpeted floor; the second time, she can't help with any of the cleaning up because she's hysterical, lying on Neil's bed and sobbing into his pillow. All of his things—his comic books, laptop, even the airsoft guns locked in his closet—are useless now, just like Lyle's video games and movie posters and—

And her brothers are gone because a terrorist group decided to kill them and she still does not understand why. The internet has provided her only limited information on the KPSA—that they are a guerrilla group from Krugis (and she had to look up what Krugis was, too, because she'd never heard of it) that has claimed responsibility for several attacks in eastern Europe and Azadistan already. But none of those attacks were nearly as large as the one on Waterford—and she begins to wonder viciously whether the military didn't take them seriously, because of it.

She's hysterical, refuses to talk to Aunt Kathryn or Teresa or any of her other family who have come from out of town to help with the house. Teresa still has a mother, and all the rest of her cousins have siblings and parents, and she is the only one who has lost everything and—and—

And she thinks sometimes that this might be unfair, because her mum was Aunt Kathryn's sister and Neil and Lyle were Teresa's cousins but they were her _family,_ and she knows she is justified in her anger and grief as she has to be pulled from Neil's room when they leave to grab dinner.

Her aunt asks her if there's anything she'd like to keep, because they can sell the house furnished and donate many items to charity (and the idea of other people living in _their_ house, using _her family's_ things, rubs raw the wounds that have not had a chance to heal), and in a fit of selfishness and fury she says she wants all of Neil's guns and comic books, and all of Lyle's video games and CDs, and both of their laptops because contained within them are all of her brothers' photos—of their family, of a time when they were still alive.

Something like worry passes over her aunt's face as she considers the small collection of airsoft guns that Neil left behind, but apparently decides not to deny her this—only saying they're going to stay locked up in the basement except when—or if—she decides to take lessons. That's fine. As long as Neil's prized possessions aren't sold off to someone who wouldn't appreciate them, wouldn't realize exactly who their owner was and what kind of a person he used to be—

Aunt Kathryn curses over the TV in the back room for hours, too, trying to set up their video game systems correctly, and when she's done Amy can't bring herself to play them. Maybe she will, someday, but her favorite racing games are boring without Lyle to play them with, and Neil's favored shooters are all but unplayable at the level he left them at, and—

And she wants her family back, except that they are gone, and no matter how Aunt Kathryn sets up their guest room to mimic hers back home, it will never be the same because—

Because her mother will never come to kiss her good night, and her father will never swing her around with his strong arms when he comes home from work, and Neil will never go along with her hare-brained scheme of the week, and Lyle will never come home late from a friend's and offer that half-apologetic smile—

What was the last thing she said to any of them? It's scarcely been two months, now, and she cannot remember—she thinks it must have been "good night" to her brothers, a throwaway phrase that she cannot let go now because it might have been the last words her brothers ever said to her, in turn. And her mother—she must have told her to have a good day, but she cannot remember because she was only half-listening, already moping about spending the day at school when her family—

She clutches to photographs and videos because some mornings she cannot remember the way her father's voice sounded, and some nightmares block out their faces because she _cannot remember,_ and most of these end with her family being blown apart by some awful person, a terrorist with no respect for her or their family and what he was tearing away. Her nightmares continue for weeks and months after the bombing, for weeks and months after she learns to keep quiet so as not to wake her worried cousin and exhausted aunt. She knows they mean well but she does not want to see a psychiatrist; she does not want to go to support groups or _talk about it._

She wants her family back, and even though she knows it is impossible, she finds she cannot bring herself to care.

.

.

A few months after, when everything has calmed down and Amy has settled into some semblance of a rhythm in this new house, Aunt Kathryn approaches her, a worn cardboard box held in her hands. "The military brought this," she starts carefully, and Amy remembers suddenly why it seems familiar. The only thing they could offer her of her family, of—"I…I'm not sure, but I think they must have bought it for you."

Amy blinks as Aunt Kathryn holds the box out to her, and takes it silently, her shaking fingers fumbling the lid a couple of times before she manages to lift it. Inside is a teddy bear—it might have been brown, once, but most of its fur has been burned away, and she can tell that it has been sewn together again manually, probably by her aunt. It was damaged, of course it was, if it—was found in the mall, if one of her brothers was—

She sobs, one hand flying to cover her mouth, and in doing so her grip on the box topples, and the bear is spilled onto the floor. Aunt Kathryn makes a concerned noise, taking a step toward her, but Amy leans down and pulls the bear from the floor, holding it in her free hand, staring at its mismatched eyes.

Neither of her brothers would ever buy a bear for themselves, so it must have been meant for her—a birthday present bought last-minute, maybe, and—

And if they hadn't wanted to buy her a present then they never would have been at the mall in the first place, and they would be—they would still be—

"Amy," Aunt Kathryn starts carefully, and as she looks up at her she knows her aunt has long come to the same conclusion. "It's all right if you don't want it right now, but I just thought—"

"No," she says, suddenly, and holds the bear a little tighter to her chest, and does not let it out of her sight for the rest of the night.

.

.

Aunt Kathryn cries when Amy quits dance, three months after the bombing.

She's been step-dancing since she was very small, continuing long after her brothers quit; she's always enjoyed the rhythm and exhilaration of it, dancing with some of her closest friends, the dresses and riotous hairstyles her mother always loved helping her with.

But her mother is no longer here to style her hair, and her brothers and father are no longer in the crowd to cheer her on. Her group's year-end performance is something they've been practicing for months, and Aunt Kathryn drives her to every rehearsal in the lead-up to the show, but she finds that despite working with the same people, the same instructors, the same _everything,_ she doesn't care.

She doesn't care, and though the show promises all of its proceeds to victims of the bombing and sells out, raising far more donation money than they ever dreamed of, Amy can barely force herself to dance. She forces herself to try and ignore the empty spots on the stage where half a dozen of her friends are still in the hospital—to try and stop looking for faces in the crowd before her that she will never find.

They earn a standing ovation, when the last _stomp_ fades into silence and they raise their hands into the air, and though Amy knows she should be smiling at a show well-done, she cannot bring her lips to curl up, and the tears have not stopped falling down her face the entire time they've been on stage.

She tells Aunt Kathryn and Teresa she's quitting on the car ride home, and her aunt cries, tries to talk her out of it—but she doesn't think she has ever been so sure of something in all her life. Teresa argues, too, saying she should keep up with her hobbies, and it's what her brothers would have wanted for her—

And Amy stops her there, because how dare she try to speak for Neil and Lyle—how _dare_ —

"Amy," Aunt Kathryn says sharply, as Teresa shrinks back, looking hurt, "just think about this for a few days, all right?"

Amy frowns, wipes at a few more stray tears on her cheeks, and eventually nods—but when she approaches her aunt three days later and says she doesn't want to dance anymore, her aunt's face twists in distress. She doesn't argue, only promises to call her instructor and tell him of her decision, and Amy almost feels remorse, listening to her aunt sob as she walks away.

.

.

The next week, she decides to cut off her hair, and asks her aunt if she can join the shooting classes that Neil and Lyle attended a few years before.

She's been growing her hair out for about a year, from the short bob she used to keep it in, but it's grown unruly—and, after all, with no performances to style it for and no mother to do the styling, she doesn't want to deal with it. It's heavy and thick, and pulling it back reminds her of the way her brothers used to pull on her ponytails, and it'll be easier just to have it short and easy to deal with. And, if she decides she hates it, a haircut isn't permanent…not like a death is.

Aunt Kathryn cries again, and the hairdresser—a woman who's cut her family's hair since before Amy was born—stares hard at her as she repeats her request. But she does not argue, and only looks at the pictures Amy has brought in, suggesting which pixie cut she thinks would look best on her.

Amy trusts her judgment, is glad she's not going to argue the point, and walks out of the salon feeling freer than she has since her birthday.

But when she brings up Neil's airsoft guns, Aunt Kathryn finally puts her foot down. "Amy, I'm worried about you," she says, not quite harshly, but Amy frowns at her. "You're—I understand that you need to grieve in your own way, but going _shooting_ —"

"Like Neil and Lyle used to do," she says. "I want to do it for them."

"At the expense of dancing?" she asks, her face twisting. "You've always loved dancing—why would you—?"

"Can I go shooting or not?" she cuts her off sharply, and Aunt Kathryn's jaw clicks shut as she stares down at her.

"Give it some time, Amy," she says, her voice a little quieter. "You're still—I don't think you're thinking straight. You don't need to do something just because your brothers did."

"I don't," Amy agrees. "I _want_ to."

.

.

When she first walks into the range, the attendant looks at her askance, even after her aunt follows behind her. "I want to start lessons," she leads with, and the man's brows rise higher.

"You'll need parental permission," he says dubiously, because even for an eleven year old, she is small and slight, and she knows she looks younger than she is. But Neil and Lyle both started shooting when they were twelve—and she knows she will not be barred from it for her age.

"I'm her guardian," Aunt Kathryn says, stepping forward for the paperwork, and Amy sees the tightness around her eyes but does not comment.

The attendant watches as she signs all the consent forms before turning his attention to Amy, looking her up and down. "You're kinda young to be shooting," he offers after a moment, and Amy bristles.

"My brothers started when they were twelve," she says, and he blinks. "I'm eleven—that's close enough."

He considers this before shrugging, accepting the paperwork and glancing over it. "Dylandy?" he says, surprised, glancing up to Amy as if in a new light. "Neil and Lyle your brothers?"

It's only been four months, and Amy knows her grief isn't going to just disappear—but this man obviously recognizes the name well enough to remember them both, even a year after they quit shooting. The pang is unexpected and painful. "Yeah," she says, a little quieter, and sees the man blink at her, unsure.

"They were—in the mall," Aunt Kathryn tells him quietly, and though Amy does not look up at him, she can hear his sharp inhale. "With their parents."

"Oh," he says, and his voice is a little hoarse. "I'm—I'm sorry."

They sign her up for weekly lessons, and Amy explains quietly that she still has Neil's guns, so they won't have to rent or buy any more. The attendant—his nametag calls him Michael—offers to set her up with the same instructor that her brothers had, and she agrees. Even Lyle had admitted that she was an excellent teacher, and the few times Amy had seen her at competition or tagging along to pick them up from practice, she had been very kind.

They're set up quickly for Monday evenings, and Amy leaves the range with her aunt, wiping at her eyes in a way she hopes is inconspicuous. "I think Neil would have loved to shoot with you," Aunt Kathryn says quietly, once they're in the car, and Amy looks up. "He and Lyle—they both loved spending time with you. To see you taking up their old hobby…"

She trails off, her hands tight on the wheel though she hasn't yet started the car. "I don't mean to be hard on you," she continues, "about dance, and your hair. I just—I want you to be happy."

"I'm not," she says, quietly, and is sure she never will be again—not when everything has been taken from her.

"That's all right," Aunt Kathryn says, just as quietly, and turns to look at her, in the backseat. "You don't have to be, right now. But—you'll find a new normal, and I think you'll be okay. Teresa and I, and everyone else, we're here if you need us, right?"

"Yeah," she whispers, curling in on herself—because she'd like to think her aunt is right, but…

Aunt Kathryn hesitates a moment longer before smiling, exhaustion clear on her face though she seems sincere, and reaches to pat her shoulder gently before turning around to start the car.


	2. Chapter 2

Amy spends a lot of time in the cemetery, as the years go on.

She's fifteen, now: a year older than her brothers were ever allowed to be. She's sure Aunt Kathryn means well when she tells her that she's growing up so nicely, winning shooting tournaments and excelling in her studies (and moving on with her life, though she never says this aloud)—but Amy often feels as if everything ground to a halt on her eleventh birthday, and never quite managed to get going again.

It's been four years, and she's mostly adjusted to living with her aunt. Teresa's a couple of years into college, now, but visits when she can—and always makes a point of coming home the weekend nearest Amy's birthday.

It's not that she celebrates it, anymore, but Amy appreciates the sentiment—and isn't too lost in her own grief to realize that her aunt and cousin lost her family, too.

She visits their grave nearly every day, at first, but as time goes on she slows down to a few times a month. She tends to it carefully, ensures that the stone is well-kept and that the flowers planted beside it are vibrant and alive. She doesn't look at the names and dates (doesn't think she can bear seeing the day she gained her life listed as the day they lost theirs), but visits often all the same—sometimes only briefly, sometimes for hours—curled up against the stone as if it will bring her closer to those whose bones are buried beneath the dirt at her feet.

She's not so naïve as to think that she can hear their voices, speaking to her from heaven or whatever afterlife such a God would create. She's not so naïve as to think they are still talking to her, but feeling close is a comfort in the years when she has little left. Aunt Kathryn does her best, as do her friends, and she truly does appreciate it. But while nearly everyone in the city knew someone affected by the bombing, none of her friends know loss on the scale that she was forced to learn—and even as they grow into teenagers alongside her, many of them seem tentative to talk about anything even narrowly related to her family or the mall.

They blink at her in concern when she tells them all that she won first place at a sharpshooting tournament, and shrink back when she says she'll be a little late to a party because she promised she'd visit their grave. She attended the unveiling of a memorial to the lives lost six months after the bombing with her aunt and cousin and Anna and Mrs. Holmes, and though Aunt Kathryn kept a steady arm around her shoulders, Amy could not stop crying. They spoke of the significance of the statue, of the resilience of humanity and strength in the face of adversity—and Amy lost what composure she might have had left when they began reading the names of those lost. Anna stood next to her, her hands shaking at her sides and tears rolling down her face, but she did not ask Amy if she wanted a hug.

Some days, she appreciates the distance. More often, she resents it more than she can say.

.

.

The day she beats Neil's old video games, she spends an hour sobbing at his grave.

She didn't touch a console for almost a year after their deaths; ghosts of Lyle's best races taunted her, and Neil was so good at his shooters that the save files were all but unplayable for her skill level. He had the difficulty cranked all the way up and was quite far into them, and Amy—frustrated as she became, when she finally did start playing them—could not clear a level, no matter how hard she tried.

It took her months to pick up the games at all, and a week after that to convince herself to save over Neil's data. Aunt Kathryn encouraged her, when she realizes what she was doing; after all, she said, Neil would have wanted you to enjoy his old games, even if it means deleting his old save data.

Amy swallows and holds back tears as she saves over them, starting over on normal difficulty and working her way up. It's really nothing like shooting in real life, but Neil's skill had always seemed to translate over, and he had thoroughly enjoyed these games. Amy finds herself liking them as well, playing late into the night on weekends (and occasional weeknights, to Aunt Kathryn's chagrin) and steadily building up her skill.

She leaves the house without a word to her aunt when she hundred-percents the last game on _insane_ difficulty, pulls her bike off the front porch, and pedals to the cemetery with tears falling down her face.

They're dead. She _knows_ this, knows they cannot be speaking to her, knows that they aren't coming back. But she wants to believe she can feel Neil's pride enveloping her as she curls up on the grass, the headstone the only thing holding her any sort of upright as she heaves great, hiccoughing sobs. Aunt Kathryn's right, she thinks—her brothers would be proud of her, in this and in everything else.

She thinks this would be the case but now, still reeling from completing the games Neil never had the opportunity to finish, she would give anything to hear it for sure—hear her brothers' voices one more time, wide grins on their faces as they tell her exactly how awesome she is. She cannot remember the way they sounded, anymore—and clings more and more to videos and photographs to remember them by.

Sometimes she tries to imagine what they might look like now—nearly nineteen, maybe in college, maybe finding a full-time job. Mum always said they took after Dad and so she bases her guesses on old pictures of her father (curlier hair, a younger face), but—

But she will never know what her brothers will look like grown because they never turned fifteen, and now she has nothing left but old video games and CDs and recordings and guns—always her (Neil's) guns. She graduated to proper guns just before she turned thirteen (something Neil had looked forward to, before he quit, saying they feel more _real)_ but keeps her brother's airsoft rifles locked in Aunt Kathryn's basement, despite the range's offer to buy them back from her.

They were Neil's, and with the precious few things she has to remember him by, anymore, she will hold onto them desperately for as long as she can.

.

.

She's fifteen, and she hates the government at least as much as she hates the KPSA.

At first, it's for the fact that they couldn't predict the bombing—couldn't realize that terrorists were planning larger and larger attacks. Perhaps an attack specifically in Waterford, Ireland might have been too much to ask, but an attack in western Europe, or even the AEU at large, might have raised the military's defenses, might have put them on their guard, and might have stopped the bombing before it even happened.

At first her anger is selfish and all-consuming, but as the years go on and she follows the news more and more, she realizes that the problems within their governments are so much broader than one attack, no matter how many people were killed. Government's failings are endless, running the spectrum from embezzlement and fraud to genocide. It's not restricted to Ireland, or the AEU, or any particular group; as she learns more about prime ministers and legislatures and kings from around the world, she realizes that there is not one that she thinks she would trust to run a country.

Once, this might have discouraged her. Now, it only makes her angry.

She's intelligent; her aunt and teachers tell her this regularly, tell her even in her first year of high school that she'll be able to get into any university she wants for her drive to learn (though her grades have steadily been slipping, since her eleventh birthday). But she's not sure she's interested in university at all—let alone the history degree that her advisor seems to be pushing toward, as a stepping-off point for a graduate degree.

Being a tactical forecaster or a politician would be good in theory, she thinks—and she would have been good at it, in another life. She could see herself working to prevent more terrorist attacks around the world; she could see herself getting elected on a platform of fixing the governments that have cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

But she's intelligent, and so she knows now exactly how hopeless this is; terrorist groups are everywhere, their motives extreme and inexplicable, and predicting their movements or legislating against them will do nothing to stop them from killing. And—even if she were to rise to elected office—the governments that started the Solar Energy Wars are still in place, making half-hearted attempts at peace and at relief to those whose lives have been destroyed. She would drive herself mad working with such people—and, after all, what could one person do to change the world?

Even if she could— _if,_ and she realizes how far-fetched it is every time her aunt mentions how good of a politician she could be—it doesn't seem like doing enough, anymore.

She thinks often of the KPSA, when she's reading about the Middle East—of the way HRL officials nearer to Krugis talk of child soldiers and mercenary groups spreading chaos. She can't decide whether she hates those soldiers or the government doing nothing about them more. After all, it's the rest of the world's fault that that region was all but destroyed in the first place.

Krugis is all but wiped out, resorting to guerrilla warfare against the Azadistani armies and their HRL allies. Azadistan itself is burning, split by a decades-long civil war that has shown no sign of ending. The surrounding countries are doing no better, with millions displaced by the in-fighting and tens of thousands coming to Europe every month, begging for asylum. Most are turned away; after all, the power blocs' governments want nothing to do with citizens of non-member, non- _paying_ countries.

Every time Amy sees the statistics, sees how many people are sent back to destroyed countries—and then sees the casualties in that part of the world, making the Waterford bombing seem like a minor accident—her rage boils a little higher. Those days, at the range, the targets she shoots at look less like paper silhouettes and more like terrorist cells and complacent legislators.

There are stories of young children going missing, of bought-out officials smuggling people to safe countries or to space for exorbitant amounts of money—of entire families accepting help from those they should be able to trust and then disappearing without a trace. There are so many that eventually, the media stops reporting on them—but aid groups tally every toddler that was lost in the chaos, every child with a friend whose entire family has disappeared. Amy reads their websites, donates what she can of her meager savings, and feels her fury rising steadily as she cannot do more.

The Solar Energy Wars themselves may be past their peak, with the Middle East's armies depleted and the attacks abroad petering into nothing as their resources are destroyed, but the violence has not died down. Much of the rest of the world has started to move on; with their friends and family out of the line of fire, after all, what does it matter, if strangers halfway around the world are dying? It's not as if entire countries have been thrown into chaos by the governments that are supposed to _protect_ this world, after all—

She reads the news every day and feels her fists clenching tighter, feels her rage burning brighter at the injustice of it all. The bombing in her hometown was awful—it is something she will never recover from—but those lives lost in Ireland are nothing when compared to the sheer number of those lost elsewhere. The fact that there is _nothing_ she can truly do about it curls her lips into a snarl every time she thinks on it.

She is fifteen and lost, unsure of what to do with her life. Her interests are history and shooting, which leave open to her politics or the military, in various capacities. But joining the military is even more unpalatable than running for office; piloting a mobile suit, propagating war, _killing people_ is so far outside of anything she thinks she'd ever be able to do. She thinks enlisting might give her aunt a heart attack, anyway, and tosses the idea aside every time it occurs to her.

.

.

.

.

Aunt Kathryn's lines grow deeper as months pass, as Amy glides through high school with decent grades across the board (they're nothing to write home about, especially compared with how she excelled in grade school), as she expresses no interest at all in college or a degree though they both know she's intelligent enough to pursue one.

Instead, she spends all her free time at the range; she's long since passed both of her brothers on the high score tables, knocking down record after record as her anger refuses to abate. She's nearly always the youngest there, and has long gotten used to the stares and the questions from newcomers. Shooting is calming to her in a way only visiting her family is; her instructor tells her she adopts the same look of concentration as her brothers once did when she's shooting. This is maybe more comforting than it should be, as the months go on and she has fewer and fewer things to remember them by.

Her aunt supports her hobby, if reluctantly, but she had nearly put her foot down at Amy's decision to switch to real guns. ("Why do you need to?" she asked, not harshly, but obviously worried when she told her over dinner one day. Amy hadn't been able to tell her that on bad days, using a real gun to shoot at pretend terrorists feels far better than anything else.) She's very clearly worried about her, but Amy can't muster the energy to care; she loves her family, of course, but they have been fooled well enough by her charade of normalcy. They think she's well-adjusted; they think she has managed to move past the single awful event that has defined her life.

Maybe another person would be able to build a new life from the rubble, but Amy is not that person—and though she is not consumed by her anger, she cannot simply leave it behind, either. And her aunt and extended family expect her to make decisions on her future like nothing ever happened; they expect her to go to college and get a job—live a normal life.

That doesn't seem like nearly enough to her, anymore.

Sure, she's plenty good at functioning in the real world when she needs to. She goes to school, and the range, and family gatherings (even if she's grown rather distant from her friends over the years). She laughs, when the situation warrants it—and sometimes she even finds the things she's laughing about funny. She can pretend all she wants, but that's all it is—and though nobody calls her out on it, Aunt Kathryn and Teresa stare at her every so often as if trying to figure something out. She's fooling them well enough, she realizes, but it may not be sustainable. She isn't sure what's going to happen when everything comes crashing down, but she doesn't have anything else in her life figured out; she'll tackle that problem when she gets there.

In the meantime, she has her shooting and her political activism—even if, for now, it's nothing more than from the armchair. She's seventeen but often feels so much older, and shoots paper targets full of holes pretending they're living people, and hates her government more than she thinks is probably rational. And every thought and every action is haunted by _what would Neil or Lyle have done in my place_ and _would my parents be proud of me_ _—_ and she thinks the worst part is that she doesn't know the answer to either of them.

.

.

The opportunity comes out of the blue, but she doesn't give herself a moment to regret it.

It's early summer, and though she's technically too young to work at the range, she helps out other customers when they look like they need a little leg-up—and the manager has promised her more than once that the moment she turns eighteen, he'll hire her on as an instructor, if she wants.

Her aunt pressures her to get a part-time job until then, at least—and she had looked upset when Amy told her of the job offer, come September. But Amy has no time for a job as a clerk or a lifeguard; she plans to drown herself in political reading and shooting for the whole summer. She's only ever pressured more to look at and apply to colleges, and her resistance to it grows stronger over time; wasting four years on a degree seems like the last thing she wants to do. She dodges questions when she can and answers bluntly when she can't, and stares at her terminal alone in her room many nights, wondering what she's going to do with herself when she's finally out of high school.

The man at the range is simply an oddity, at first; she wasn't even sure she could label him that until she heard him speak sharply to an attendant. His brown hair is sharply cut and streaked through with purple, and his eyes are bright and sharp as he stares down the range, only shooting a few targets down himself. He seems more interested in the people there—and more than once, Amy feels a prickling down her neck that means he's staring at her again.

His shooting's decent, when she has a chance to glance over, and she supposes that if he knows what he's doing, he might know the reigning champion of their local range, as well. But when he speaks it's with a distinct American accent—unobtrusive, like international news announcers put on—and she wonders exactly what an American man with purple hair could want with a small, run-down shooting range in Ireland.

And then, when she's paying attention, she sees him outside of the range, too. She sees him on sidewalks, in stores—even, once, in the graveyard, standing in an open patch of grass and staring up at the sky. Perhaps the most worrying is when she goes out to dinner with her aunt and cousin and sees him sitting alone a few tables over. The purple in his hair is invisible in the low light, and it's tied back primly with a rubber band, but it's undeniably the man from the range. Amy watches as he requests his check minutes after they do, though his food is only half-eaten, and her eyes narrow.

He's not someone she recognizes from school, though he looks like he might be about her age. He's either eighteen or bending the rules like her, because he never comes in with an adult—and had all but thrown his ID with a snarl at the first attendant to ask after his age. His clothes are always unobtrusive and _normal_ , as if designed not to attract attention, though the pink sweater he's worn a couple of times has raised many eyebrows.

All in all, she's not at all sure what to make of him—and decides to confront him at the first opportunity. Talking to him at the range would be a safe bet, with plenty of other people around—but even if he did approach her alone, she takes comfort in the handgun she keeps tucked in her bag. (Semi-legally obtained, definitely illegally owned—with her aunt none the wiser. If the government isn't going to protect its constituents, after all, she needs to protect herself.)

(She doesn't tell her aunt about the man—doesn't want to worry her, especially if it ends up being nothing. Aunt Kathryn worries about her enough, these days.)

After weeks of this, he finally talks to her late one afternoon as she's walking home from the cemetery. It's a couple of miles, and Aunt Kathryn has given her free use of Teresa's old car, but it's a nice day—and walking allows her to clear her thoughts, especially after spending nearly half an hour talking with her family.

"Amelia Dylandy," the man says from close behind her, and she spins on her heel, her hand going for her bag. She hadn't even noticed he was following her, let alone that he was so close—and she berates herself for being so lost in thought when she's known he's been following her around.

"What do you want?" she asks sharply, her hand wrapping around the gun in her bag and not letting go. "I'm armed—you've seen how good I am with a gun."

The man smiles a bit, as if she's made a joke. "I am quite aware," he agrees, and pulls his own hands from his sweater pockets. They're too small to hold anything of a threat, she knows, but it's a gesture of good will all the same.

Her brows furrow, and she does not let go of her gun.

"Your shooting scores are quite impressive," he says, his face and voice carefully neutral as he takes a small step forward. "My superiors and I have taken note."

His superiors? Amy considers this, wonders whether this man is with the government, ready to arrest her for her gun—whether she's incriminated herself by admitting she's carrying one. Or whether he's part of the military, and is offering her a position in his unit—but he doesn't seem like the military type, especially with the purple streaks still visible in his hair.

Whoever they are, though, this man has taken note of her shooting scores but has not looked into her life deeply enough to realize she hates being called Amelia—and this rankles more than it should. "What do you want?" she asks, a little harshly, and he stares at her for a moment behind those sharp glasses before replying.

"We know exactly how much you hate the government," he says, "and we know what happened to your family. You may be interested in working with us."

Amy blinks, her face twisting. It's never been any secret who died in the bombing, but her anti-government sentiments she has kept to herself—in part so she would not get in trouble with the law. But she hasn't been encrypting her laptop and phone as she should, and—she supposes—a sufficiently competent hacker could—

"We are a private armed organization," he continues, when she does not reply. Her face twists—mobile suits, then, or a ground unit that wants her behind a rifle's scope. "Our goal is to eradicate war from this world, whether it be propagated by the government or by terrorists."

She turns this over in head, can't quite land on anything, and then considers the man before her again. He's barely of age (if he is at all), with purple in his hair and a pink sweater over his shoulders. He certainly doesn't seem like someone ready to wage war against—likely—the combined militaries of the world, and she nearly laughs at the absurdity of it. "That's ridiculous," she snaps after another moment, as he stares at her behind those thin glasses. "You're saying your so-called _organization_ can fight the entire world? That's suicide!"

His face contorts momentarily. "I have full confidence in the Plan," he says sharply, and she can hear the capitalization of the last word in his voice. "But in order for us to properly execute it, we require your abilities."

"I'm not interested in killing anyone," she snaps, and frowns as he shakes his head.

"You're quite interested in changing the world," he says levelly, "and you've realized that peaceful means are not the answer. There is no other way."

Amy frowns deeply, but she can hear the truth in his words. Hasn't she been thinking exactly that, for all these years? She knows she's been fooling herself, wishing the world would change without a great upheaval of power, but—

"What would I be doing?" she hedges, though she thinks she knows the answer.

"We are building four custom mobile suits," he says. "You would pilot our sniping unit, to—I expect—great effect."

"I haven't set foot in a mobile suit in my life," she says, and her stomach turns at the thought of that much power beneath her fingertips.

"You will be given extensive training," he says, and the words are reassuring, but his voice doesn't seem to quite get the memo. "It will be several years before we enter the world's stage—you need not worry about being underprepared."

Amy knows this is wrong—knows that she is seventeen years old, that she should not be joining some random militia that approaches her off the street. So why is she having trouble coming up with reasons to refuse them? "What is this _Plan,_ then?" she asks, and she feels like it's a reasonable question to ask.

However, his face twists, and an imperious look grows on his features. "That is not for you to know," he says. "Our commander has everything well in hand. You will be given information on a need-to-know basis."

Amy frowns deeply at him. "You're expecting me to risk my life for you," she says slowly, just to confirm, "but you're not telling me what it's _for?_ "

"Our goal is to eradicate war from this Earth, by any means necessary," he says sharply. "If you are to become a Gundam Meister, that is all you need to know, and it should be enough."

Amy stares at him, weighing her options. "How long will I be gone?" she asks eventually, fairly certain they aren't anywhere near Ireland if they sent an American to recruit her. "And where are you based?"

"For as long as the Plan requires," he says, and her frown deepens. "You will leave within the week, and be stationed in space, with the rest of your team."

Amy's first instinct, if she's honest with herself, is to jump on this offer. She's been dreading her senior year of high school for months, after all, and a 'job offer' is something even her aunt wouldn't be able to argue. But—piloting a mobile suit, for _years_ (as this man seems to be suggesting), fighting and killing people to try and stop war?

How far has her heart been twisted, that she thinks this might be justified?

"All ties to Earth must be cut off," he says over her increasingly clearer thoughts, and she blinks at him, surprised. "We are an organization built on secrecy. You will not be allowed to speak to anyone of what you are doing, what organization you are affiliated with, or where you work. Your free time on Earth will be minimal, and you may be stationed such that you will not be able to travel to Ireland."

"My aunt's not going to like that," Amy mutters without much thought, though it's the truth—and the man frowns impatiently at her.

"You should not be—"

"Fine," she cuts him off, and he stops, drawing himself up a little more in outrage. But Amy pulls her hand out of her bag (her grip has long loosened on her gun, anyway) and stares at him. "I accept. What now?"

His jaw clicks shut, and he stares at her a moment longer before pulling a data stick from his pocket and holding it out to her. "Any further information you want to know can be found here," he says, and stares at her as she accepts it, flipping it around her finger for a few moments before tucking it into her bag. "If anyone but you attempts to read the files, they will self-delete. Do not lose it, or share it with anyone else."

Amy nods, and he continues, pulling slips of paper out of his pocket—"Your flight leaves Thursday morning. You will travel to the Union's elevator and take a linear train to the high orbital station. A woman will be there to pick you up. She is Japanese, with long red hair and a full figure."

Amy blinks, nodding—and looks down to the plane tickets as she takes them from his hand. "If you have any further questions after reading the information on the data drive, she will be able to answer them," he says. "Do you have any questions for me right now?"

Amy shakes her head vaguely, still trying to wrap her head around the fact that in five days, she will be traveling to space. "Wait," she says, as the man nods sharply and turns to leave. "My name's Amy. Don't call me Amelia."

The man snorts, looking at her in something like amusement as he shakes his head. "Your name is no longer Amy Dylandy," he says, and she frowns sharply at him. "From now on, you will be referred to as Lockon Stratos."

.

.

Aunt Kathryn nearly throws a fit, when she gives her the news.

 _You still have a year of school left_ and _what kind of company offers a job to someone who doesn_ _'t even have a high school diploma_ and _space travel is still dangerous, you shouldn_ _'t go until it_ _'s safer_ are thrown at her for hours that night, when the plane tickets are burning a hole in her purse and all she wants to do is go upstairs, lock the door, and plug the data stick into her computer. She's thought on this in the hours since she met with that strange man, and the reasoning becomes clearer every moment. She's not entirely comfortable with killing others—and isn't sure it's something she'll be able to talk herself around to—but everything else is falling into place far too easily in her mind.

If it's a scam, if it's ultimately not something she'd be comfortable doing, she can always come home—but she doubts more with every second that that's going to happen. That man had seemed deadly serious about their mission, had seemed personally offended when she questioned it—and, after all, hasn't she been raging at the combined world governments for six years now? Hasn't she wished for a way to push them down in recompense for all the lives they've ruined?

Aunt Kathryn realizes eventually that she's not really listening to her worries, and cuts herself off, reaching to rub at her eyes, to tuck flyaway hair from her face. "You're going," she says, in a defeated tone that says she knows she's lost. "I just— _why?_ What did you sign up for?"

"I can't tell you," she says, and feels a twinge of regret at the hurt crossing her aunt's face. "I—I want to, but he said it's all secret. But I think…I'll be able to do good for the world, with this job."

Her aunt drops her hands so she can stare at Amy, as if trying to divine the truth just from her face. "Your parents only ever wanted two things for you," she says after a moment, very quietly, and Amy forces herself to hold her gaze even as her stomach flips, "and so do I. I want you to be safe, and I want you to be happy. But this—this doesn't sound safe at all!"

"It's going to make me happy," she says, "happier than I've been since they were alive. Isn't that good enough?"

Aunt Kathryn does not bother to hide the hurt on her face, and Amy almost regrets it. "Not if you're putting yourself in harm's way," she says, her voice cracking, and Amy's face twists. "You—Amy, you have a tendency to go into things headfirst, and uprooting your entire life in less than a _week,_ I think…you should just think about this a little more."

"I've made my decision," she says firmly, crossing her arms over her chest. "I have the plane tickets, someone's meeting me to pick me up. I promise I'll come home when I can, but I'd much rather do this than finish high school, or go to university."

"And what happens when this is over?" Aunt Kathryn demands. "Without a high school diploma, without any sort of degree—when you come home, what are you going to do?"

"I'll figure it out," she says, and ignores the growing realization that this seems like more of a long-term job—one she'll hold for several years, if she leaves it at all. "I'll be fine, I promise."

Aunt Kathryn sobs, then, and does not try to hide it—she closes the distance between them in a few quick steps, pulling Amy into a tight hug. "I know I'm not your mum," she says into her hair, and Amy stiffens. Though Aunt Kathryn has dealt with intense grief before (for her husband died before Amy was born), they don't often talk about Amy's mother for the pain it still causes the both of them. "But you're my daughter, now. And sometimes I worry that Lyndsay wouldn't approve of how I've raised you."

"You've raised me fine," Amy says immediately, trying to keep the sudden tears out of her voice. "This is just—something I have to do."

"Will you promise me you'll come home?" she asks, even more quietly, and Amy hesitates here, because she's not sure she can promise this—but she knows exactly what her aunt needs to hear, to put her heart at ease, to assuage the worries of her sister's judgment.

"I promise," she says, and only hugs her aunt tighter.

.

.

Her bags are packed by Wednesday night, sitting in the front hall—containing a good portion of her wardrobe, personal items, and electronics (though she suspects they will be encrypted and re-encrypted once she arrives at her new home). Nestled in among her sweaters is a worn, brown teddy bear and a stack of printed photographs of her family that she will fight tooth and nail to keep, no matter what security measures these people demand of her.

Aunt Kathryn cries all night though she does not threaten to stop her, and Teresa came home Monday night when she heard what was happening—and went through nearly the same conversation with Amy as her mother did. But by that point, Amy had gone through the data stick, staring with wide eyes at mobile suit schematics she can't hope to understand—truly vast archives of military and governmental histories that she would have no hope of reading on her own.

Tucked in amongst them all is data on the KPSA, detailed information on Krugis' last months, and Amy had to steel herself before reading that particular file. But she comes out all the more determined (even if she's wiping angry tears from her eyes by the end), and she thinks that if she is to have a shot at changing the world, this organization—with its vast resources and bottomless bank accounts—is probably it.

Her brothers, she thinks, would understand, even if they wouldn't have done the same. Neil was always so cheerful and carefree and kind, and she's sure he would never even consider joining such a group—even should he have survived them all. His heart was far too big, and he was always so gentle in everything he did. The idea of Neil behind the throttles of a mobile suit is too strange for her to even consider. But he loved her—this she has never doubted—and even if he would have been upset, he would have tried to understand.

Lyle, she thinks, might have understood better, with his more cynical view of the world (even if it was only ever limited to their family and classmates, young as he was). She's not sure whether he would have followed in her footsteps, but with his quicker temper, his tendency to lash out against any perceived injustice…he may or may not have done the same, but he would have understood.

Her mother would have cried, just as Aunt Kathryn did—and her father would have been upset, probably beyond words. But they wouldn't have been able to stop her, just as her aunt couldn't, and she hopes that, in time, they would have come to understand what she was trying to achieve.

A place without terrorism and without warfare, without governments so corrupt as to create those awful conflicts in the first place; who wouldn't wish for such a world?

Her aunt helps her load her things into the car and drives her up to Dublin and its international airport, and Amy's hands are clasped tightly in her lap as she stares out the window in silence. The few times she's mustered the courage to look at her aunt, there were tears on her face—and eventually Amy's courage fails her. Looking at the countryside she won't see for months or years is easier than looking at the family she's leaving behind.

They put her bags on a cart and then Aunt Kathryn is pulling her into a crushing hug, even tighter than on the night she announced her departure, and does not let go for several seconds. "Promise you'll write," she says, and Amy hesitates, "and call, and—and visit, whenever you can. Teresa and I, you don't need to call ahead—just show up at the door. We'll be happy to have you."

"I will," she says, remembers the expression on that man's face as he explained their secrecy rules, and wonders how much external communication she's going to be allowed. "You don't need to worry, okay?"

"I'm always going to worry," she says quietly, and hugs her tighter for several moments before finally letting go. "I love you, and—and I want you to know how proud of you I am. Your parents—they would have been proud, too, more than they could say. They would have been glad to see their daughter changing the world."

Amy blinks a couple of times, feels a lump rising in her throat, and struggles to swallow it away. "I love you too," she says, very quietly, and reaches for the handle of the cart; she walks into the airport, and does not look back.


	3. Chapter 3

_Welp, this ended up being way over 20k words anyway, but I really wanted all of the Celestial Being stuff to be in one chapter. I've come to a compromise, where I've put extra-long scene breaks where any other author would probably put a chapter break. There's 7 'pseudo-chapters' in total (OTL); I hope it makes this a little bit more reasonable to read!_

 _You can pry from my cold, dead hands the headcanon that not everyone spoke English when they were recruited to Celestial Being. The show may not have given anyone accents in the dub, but it makes no sense for them all to speak fluent English when they came from all over the world—especially Setsuna, who had zero reason to know any language except the one he grew up with._

 _ **Warning** : the scene about a third of the way down that starts with "Despite the late start on both Friday and Saturday mornings..." has a creepy guy creeping on women. It doesn't progress past verbal harassment and arm-grabbing, but especially as one of the girls is underage (not the one that gets grabbed), I thought the warning was warranted. I put a summary of the scene at the bottom of the chapter, if you would prefer to read that instead. It's also discussed in the subsequent several scenes, but not in any detail and more focused on their reactions to it._

* * *

There's artificial gravity in the high orbital block, and the linear train gave her some limited experience with null g. But as she pulls her luggage behind her, Amy feels out of sorts, vaguely nauseous and lost as she looks around for a woman that matches the description the man gave her.

"Lockon," a voice says expectantly from nearby, and she turns on instinct, even before she remembers that that is to be her name. Sure enough, a woman is standing there, looking at her appraisingly, and she matches the description down to the letter. Her hair billows out around her in the half-gravity, and her arms are crossed over her ample chest as she stares at Amy.

"Are you the one picking me up?" Amy asks, taking a tentative step forward, and the woman nods, hesitating for another moment before gesturing for her to follow.

"Our shuttle is this way—we can talk more once we're on board."

It's not a dismissal, only an indication that they shouldn't speak more while out in the open—and Amy is sharp enough to realize this as she follows quietly. They're on a shuttle soon enough, and the woman points Amy toward a flight suit just inside the loading bay, turning her back as she strips and pulls one on herself. Amy is a bit slower, unfamiliar with the design and struggling with the helmet, but the woman corrects her gently when she fumbles the zipper, and tells her they won't need helmets unless an emergency arises—something she greatly doubts will happen.

"My name is Sumeragi Lee Noriega," she says, once they're settled and she's started to power up the shuttle. She speaks with a slight Spanish accent, though her English is fluent and clear—and Amy can tell it's a false name, just like Lockon Stratos, in the way the words don't roll off her tongue as naturally as they should. "I'm Celestial Being's commander and tactical forecaster."

Amy blinks, and tries not to stare. _This_ is the mastermind behind the organization taking on the whole world? She was expecting someone—well, older, at the very least. "So you're—behind the Plan that guy was talking about?" she asks, and cannot keep the incredulity from her voice. Sumeragi huffs a bit, glancing sidelong at her as she maneuvers them out of the docking bay.

"He didn't even introduce himself? Typical. He's Tieria Erde—he'll be piloting alongside you, so you'll have to forgive his—ah—tendencies. We're working on breaking him down."

Amy blinks, unsure of what she means or how to respond, but Sumeragi continues—"I'm just the one setting the plan into motion, and even then we're one of dozens of cells across Earth and space. I think that was mentioned in the files Tieria gave you?"

"Yeah," she says, "It just sounded like this team would be doing most of the public work. I assumed that meant you were in charge."

"There's no one person in charge, per se," she says. "We're all independent and follow orders from Veda. But I'm the one making the decisions on the battlefield and drawing up battle plans for you Meisters."

"Who's Veda?" she asks, curious, for she does not recall reading the name in their files—and Sumeragi snorts again, shaking her head.

"What do you know about Aeolia Schenberg?"

.

.

Krung Thep isn't like anything Amy has ever seen before.

Even seeing space stations on videos and news feeds isn't the same as walking (or, more accurately, coasting in low gravity) through one herself. She follows Sumeragi through the halls, looking around in a bit of awe at the steel walls and the other people they pass—much more graceful in the gravity than she is, right now. She's still in the normal suit from the shuttle, and Sumeragi said the Haros (whatever those are) will bring her luggage to her new quarters. She's bringing her to a conference room now, she explains, to introduce her to the rest of the crew.

"We're not fully assembled," she says. "We don't have a helmsman or our other two pilots, and Feldt isn't officially on the roster yet, but she's around often enough that it doesn't really matter. But it'll be good for you to meet the others."

Amy decides this is reasonable enough as she follows Sumeragi down yet another corridor, focusing on her grip on the transporter—trying very hard to keep herself upright and not turn somersaults in the hallway. Eventually they arrive at a closed door exactly like all the others they've passed, and Sumeragi releases the transporter, keying in a code to open the door. Amy stops a bit more clumsily than her, automatically trying to plant her feet before she catches herself, only grabbing onto the doorframe and hesitantly following her new commander inside.

There are about half a dozen people there, who have all turned expectantly toward the door by the time Amy makes her way through. "Glad you made it back," a middle-aged man in glasses says with a little grin to Sumeragi before his gaze slides to Amy.

"This is Lockon Stratos," Sumeragi says, gesturing to her, and Amy considers stepping forward before realizing exactly how bad an idea that would be. "She'll be piloting Dynames."

Everyone greets her with varying levels of cheer; a woman about Amy's age grins broadly at her and waves from her place beside a young girl with bright pink hair, and a large man in a red shirt nods with a little smile. She spots Tieria, leaning against the far wall and not looking terribly enthused about the whole arrangement, but he nods to her all the same. She notes in some confusion that his hair is no longer brown; every strand is the bright purple the streaks used to be, and she blinks a couple of times before forcing her gaze away as the grizzled man asks—"You have any experience in mobile suits?"

Amy shakes her head. "Figure I can learn fast enough—Tieria said there will be plenty of training."

"Sure there will!" he says, grinning a bit to the man in a lab coat beside him. "Just good to know where to start. I'm Ian, head of engineering—we're still putting the finishing touches on your Gundam, but you'll be in simulations soon enough. Wanna give you time to settle in anyway, yeah?"

Amy considers her continued instability in the low gravity, the way she'll never be able to find her way around this base on her own, and finds that she agrees. "I appreciate it," she says, and Ian's smile grows broader as he leans against the wall, graceful in a way Amy can only aspire toward.

"Chris, could you show her to her quarters?" Sumeragi asks, and Amy blinks, glancing in some confusion to the two remaining men in the room—but the woman her age all but jumps forward, her face lighting up. "Lockon, we'll talk more tomorrow morning. The Haro in you room will let you know when and where to meet."

"Okay," Amy says, only a little unsure, still confused as to what a Haro is but figuring she'll find out soon enough. They don't leave the conference room immediately, though; Lasse Aeon and Doctor Moreno introduce themselves cheerfully, taking mercy on her and moving toward her to chat rather than making her move closer. Lasse assures her with a rueful grin that she's doing better than him already, on her first day in space—he was nauseous the whole ride up, and puked all over Tieria on the shuttle out to Krung Thep. Vomit in null g, he explains with a laugh, is even nastier than you're imagining.

Amy laughs despite herself, and then laughs harder when she sees the dour look on Tieria's face as he pushes off sharply toward the door, not so much as glancing her way.

Doctor Moreno explains quietly that she'll need to come for a medical exam in the next several days, though they're not expecting any serious issues. She nods, a little hesitantly (it's irrational, after all, but any visit to the doctor reminds her a little too much of her dad), and is gladly distracted as Chris drags the pink-haired girl over and introduces her as Feldt. Amy tries not to stare; she's certainly prepubescent, and probably not even middle school aged. But Sumeragi had said that she wasn't a member of their crew _yet,_ which means she's going to be one eventually. She looks very shy, though, and Amy smiles kindly at her as Chris introduces them animatedly, talking about all the stuff they'll have to do together when they're next down on the surface.

Amy hasn't gone shopping with girlfriends in years—especially not for clothes—but it sounds like an inevitability more than anything else, if the resigned look on Feldt's face is anything to go by. She laughs along, is surprised at how real it ends up being, and eventually accepts Chris' hand out into the hallway toward the sleeping quarters.

"I dunno what time zone you're on, but it's about bedtime up here," Chris explains, and Amy nods—even if it weren't late in Ireland as well, she'd be exhausted by the long flights. "Your stuff should be in your room already, but Feldt and I are gonna have to borrow all your tech. We'll give you a new phone and laptop, but we should be able to transfer all your files no problem."

Amy nods, relieved that her family photos and videos will not be touched. But—"Why's security so tight?" she asks. On some level she can understand controlling information that leaves and enters the base, but—codenames and limited contact with her family seems excessive, to her.

"Mostly 'cause Tieria and Miss Sumeragi say so," she says with a little shrug. "It's part of the Plan, I guess. Miss Sumeragi explained it as not getting bogged down by our pasts, but I'm not really sure how bottling it all up is gonna help."

Amy finds herself agreeing, but Chris continues—"We've all got codenames—I know it's a little weird, answering to Lockon, but you'll get used to it eventually. I've been here six months, and Christina seems about as natural as my old name."

Amy thinks this might be in part because Christina is an actual, normal _name;_ after all, who would believe her parents named her Lockon Stratos? She has a sudden mental image of her brothers trying to contain incredulous laughter at its ridiculousness, and swallows it away as Chris continues—"Basically, security prevents us from talking about our past and any personal connections we might have left, outside of Celestial Being. Tieria's tried to talk us out of having personalities, too, but I don't think Miss Sumeragi will let him get that far." She grins over at Amy, who only stares back at her, a little bemused. "And, of course, when you travel you can't tell anyone who you work for, but that should be pretty obvious."

"Yeah," Amy agrees, and almost adds something about how that might be difficult with an overbearing aunt, but realizes that falls under _classified information_ here, for still no reason she can discern. But Chris pulls herself to a halt outside a door, and as Amy glances around there seems to be more doors down this hall than the others they've been in.

"These are the living quarters," Chris explains quickly, punching a code into the keypad by the door and gesturing to Amy as it slides open. "You can change the code on your door to anything you'd like, just ask Orange Haro to help you. He'll pass it to Miss Sumeragi for security reasons, but nobody's gonna come barging in on you."

"Okay," Amy says, and swallows down yet another question about Haros as she follows Chris into the room. Sure enough, her luggage is lined up neatly beside a wall of cupboards, and a stark bed and desk fill out the small room. The only other thing present is a small metal ball, and Amy starts as it jumps off the desk. "Lockon Stratos! Lockon Stratos!"

Amy blinks at it before turning to Chris for an explanation; she grins at the robot a bit fondly. "That's Orange Haro," she says to Amy. "He'll be your partner in piloting, Ian'll be able to tell you the details. And he'll show you around base, too, until you learn your way around."

"Right," Amy says, admittedly a little lost. She hadn't even known AIs were in standard use, let alone assigned as personal assistants—but reaches out instinctively when the little robot launches itself toward her; she catches it in both hands, staring at what she supposes must be its eyes.

"They're all really sweet," Chris says, her smile just as broad. "There's a few dozen that live in the hangars, they're helping the engineers on Dynames and the other Gundams."

"Right," she says again, and Chris hesitates before putting a hand on her shoulder.

"You mind if I grab any electronics from you?" she asks, and Amy blinks, shaking her head. "Should have your new ones in a day or so, but we need to make sure everything's secure."

"Sure," Amy says, hesitating before releasing Haro, who beeps cheerily at her as she moves toward her luggage. Her laptop is nestled in with several of her hoodies, and she puts them aside carefully as she digs down toward the bottom.

Her stack of photos and stuffed bear get placed carefully on the desk rather than the floor, and though Chris frowns a bit, glancing over the top photo, she says nothing as Amy straightens up with her laptop, pulling her phone out of her jeans and handing it over as well. Chris accepts them, and then hesitates a moment longer before nodding to the photos.

"You probably shouldn't let Tieria see those," she says. "He might consider them a breach of security, try and confiscate them. But it should be okay if you keep them in here, I think."

"Thank you," Amy says, and tries to imagine her reaction, should Tieria confiscate her family photos. She realizes it would be furious and most likely violent, and decides quickly to keep them tucked away in a drawer. "I'll do that."

Chris nods again, her smile reappearing. "It's great to have another woman on board," she says cheerfully. "I was expecting all the Meisters to be guys, you know? We'll need to compare notes, hang out on our days off."

"I haven't had a girlfriend in a while," Amy says, almost an apology, but Chris' smile grows a bit warmer.

"We're all in the same boat, I think," she says. "Feldt's lived here all her life, but she's one of the youngest on the entire base—and I don't think Sumeragi had many friends before she was recruited, either. I definitely didn't."

Amy blinks, considers Chris' easygoing attitude and eagerness to be friends, and wonders why. "We'll be fine," she continues, hugging Amy's laptop a bit tighter. "We're gonna be a small crew anyway, so it'd be a problem if we weren't all friendly, right?"

"That's true," Amy says, but thinks of Tieria's strict and vaguely condescending demeanor, wondering if he's someone she could ever be friends with. Chris looks at her for a moment before laughing, evidently catching onto her train of thought.

"Tieria might be an exception," she acknowledges, "but Lasse and Ian are good people. We don't see a ton of Doctor Moreno, and Sumeragi spends a lot of time in her room, but maybe our helmsman and other two pilots will be able to help!"

"Hopefully," Amy says, and finds that her smile is a little more natural. Chris', impossibly, grows wider.

"Haro will wake you up with plenty of time tomorrow," she says. "Bathrooms are down the hall to the left. If you have any questions, anyone'll be happy to answer them!"

"Thank you," Amy says honestly, finding herself liking Chris, despite her overabundance of cheer. Weeks ago, that would have annoyed her to no end. Now, she figures, if someone this cheerful can find it in them to join a group like Celestial Being, they must either be an incredible actor or the most selfless person on the planet.

Chris waves, smile still firmly in place, and lets herself out through the door.

.

.

.

.

Early the next morning, Haro leads her to a small conference room exactly like the one they met in yesterday. He's surprisingly responsive, slowing down when he realizes she's still uncomfortable in the low gravity and even beeping encouragement to her every so often.

She knows it's ridiculous, but she's starting to feel endeared to this little orange robot—more than she has in years to anyone _human_ back home.

"Lockon," Miss Sumeragi says as greeting when they stumble in, nodding to her. Amy supposes she should probably try to think of herself as Lockon Stratos, now, rather than Amy Dylandy—she doesn't know the consequences of introducing herself incorrectly on base, but she decides quickly that she would rather not find out. "Thanks for coming—I know you're probably exhausted."

"I'm okay," she says reflexively, though truthfully she slept very little last night, due to the strangeness of sleeping in low g. Miss Sumeragi smiles, looking a little tired herself, and shakes her head.

"I just need to give you a briefing on what your life will be like up here," she says, and pauses to take a drink from a tumbler. Amy—Lockon—blinks, could swear she catches a whiff of alcohol as she moves forward carefully, but writes it off quickly. Who'd be drinking this early in the morning, after all?

The run-down is quick but in-depth, and Lockon tries to listen carefully and commit it all to memory. It's all rather pedantic—schedules and shifts, safety trainings she'll need to complete before setting foot in her Gundam, mealtimes and exactly how much free time she's going to have.

"Not much," Miss Sumeragi says with a rueful little smile. "But I know you have family on Earth who will want to see you, so I'll try to make sure you can visit about once a year—at least before we start our interventions."

"I thought we weren't supposed to talk about our families," Lockon says carefully, wondering whether this is a test, and Miss Sumeragi laughs, taking another long drink.

"Most of us don't have any," she says, baldly. "And most of those who do have them here on the colony. Your aunt's quite the anomaly around here, but I can understand not wanting to desert her entirely."

Lockon blinks, unsure of whether to thank her for this, and Miss Sumeragi sighs. "Tieria won't be happy about it, but he's never happy about anything. Don't worry about it," she says. "If you don't want the leave, you can say so. I just want you to know it will be available."

"I appreciate it," Lockon says eventually, though she thinks such visits will probably do Aunt Kathryn more good than they will her. "I just—don't want to be given special treatment, or anything."

"It's not special treatment," she says immediately, a little frown growing on her face. "As long as you don't tell your family anything of what you're doing or where you work, and you don't allow them to interfere with your duties, there's no reason not to allow you to visit."

"Chris said we're supposed to cut ties with our pasts so they don't weigh us down," she says dubiously. Miss Sumeragi laughs, then, and raises her tumbler in something of a toast before taking another deep swig.

"That's what Veda says we should be doing, but there's only so much we humans can handle," she says. "Celestial Being's goal is to eradicate war and terrorism from the world. I don't mind so much how you come to the same conclusions, so long as you're willing to do what needs to be done."

"Killing people," Lockon says quietly, remembering exactly what she's here for, and Miss Sumeragi's face falls.

"I know you've never killed before," she says, a little gentler. "But I also know you wouldn't have agreed to join if you weren't prepared to do so. Humanity needs to change—everyone on this colony knows it, and has dedicated their lives to that goal. We're never going to be considered heroes, but I hope we'll be remembered as those who tried to change the world."

Lockon grimaces, but realizes that she's not wrong. Any fairy tales with heroes and happy endings flew out of her head six years ago, and she knows that nothing so blithe and naïve will bring about the world she wants to see.

"I'll do what needs to be done," she says eventually, and Miss Sumeragi smiles bitterly, taking another long drink.

.

.

Ian's smudged with oil when Haro leads her to the hangars later, but he's clearly happy to see her as he pushes off from an enormous frame a hundred feet above her, coasting down to ground level without batting an eye. (Lockon supposes she'll need to get used to it sooner or later, but for now the sight only makes her a little nauseous.) "Glad your meeting with Sumeragi went well," he says, pulling off a glove and reaching to shake her hand. "She send you over to see your Gundam?"

"Yeah," she says, glancing up to the machine in front of her. She's never seen mobile suits up close before, and has never realized exactly how huge they are; the two of them, standing on the ground, are scarcely as tall as its foot.

"This is Dynames," Ian says, a bit grandly, nodding up to the frame. "Your guns are still in progress, but the Gundam itself is mostly done. We should be able to start your training with Tieria within a week."

Lockon blinks, nods, and continues to stare up at the suit. She wonders vaguely whether the green accents are supposed to be a nod to her heritage, or whether it's a lucky coincidence. "I know you've got plenty of experience with guns, but piloting a Gundam's going to be a lot different than you're used to," Ian says after another moment—taking her silence as awe, if the pleased look on his face is any indication. "You'll have a sniping apparatus for the rifle, but your pistols and beam sabers are gonna be controlled on your dashboard—and there's a few hundred switches and buttons you're gonna have to learn before I actually let you turn it on. You up for it?"

Lockon frowns, turning to him, and only bites back the indignant retort when she sees the grin on his face. "Sumeragi showed me your scores from all those tournaments you've competed in," he says conspiratorially. "She also told me she's never seen scores that high anywhere, from anyone, no matter their age. I wouldn't worry about doing a bad job, even if you're new to the idea of mobile suit combat."

Amy feels her face flush a bit; she's been told this before, by her aunt and her instructors and by those she wiped the floor with, but hearing it from a member of an elite, top-secret society that hand-picked her as a pilot…it's something else entirely. "I don't plan to fail in anything I do," she says eventually, and Ian laughs and claps her on the shoulder.

"Maybe you'll get along with Tieria after all," he says, and Lockon has just enough time to wonder whether her fellow pilot is the butt of everyone's jokes on this colony before she's pulled forward toward her new Gundam.

.

.

Her first on-board encounter with Tieria is a few days later, when Ian finally lets her into her cockpit—when she thinks she's getting the hang of operating in a perpetual third-g. He's in the hangar, floating in space and working on the Gundam beside her own—Virtue, Ian explained when Lockon asked: Tieria's heavy-artillery unit. She decides that fighting style fits her fellow pilot a little too well.

He looks over when Ian helps her up to the cockpit, and his face twists in impatience as she has to catch herself awkwardly on an edge to prevent herself spinning across the massive room. "Operating in low gravity is a necessary skill for a Gundam Meister," he says sharply, and Lockon looks over with a raised eyebrow, even as she struggles to re-align herself. "If you cannot master this, we might as well send you back to Earth now."

Her brows rise higher, and she hears Ian sigh somewhere behind her as Tieria only continues to frown at her. "I've been here four days," she says eventually. "How long did it take _you_ to get used to the gravity?"

"I did not need to _get used to_ anything," he snaps, and before Lockon can question this further, he turns his back to her, his strange hair floating behind him as he snatches up a soldering iron and goes to work on some small imperfection in Virtue's armor.

Lockon turns to Ian, a little taken aback, but he only shrugs at her, pointing her into her cockpit and mouthing _later_. The lesson goes well enough; though the number of switches on the dashboard before her is dizzying and near-impossible to memorize, Ian assures her that he didn't expect her to get it all in one go. "Even Tieria took a couple of days," he says with a little grin, and Lockon supposes that's probably supposed to be meant as comfort as Haro precedes her out of the cockpit.

"Did he grow up out here?" she asks, unable to contain her curiosity as she glances around the now-empty hangar. Ian blinks, considering her for a moment, and she wonders whether asking such things will get her in trouble. But after a moment he only shrugs, leading her back down to the ground.

"That's anyone's best guess. He just showed up a couple of years ago, perfectly capable of handling himself. He even says he's able to interface directly with Veda. He's a genius, definitely, but other than that, he's mostly just an asshole."

"I thought Veda was a supercomputer," she says, surprised, and Ian nods.

"It is, but he won't explain it, and Sumeragi says it's confidential, so good luck guessing. I think Christina and Lasse have started a betting pool, if you're interested."

She laughs, and then laughs harder when she looks at him closer and realizes he's serious. "I wasn't sure what to expect when I agreed to come up here, but I don't think this was it," she says. "I mean, I'm surprised you recruited me at all—I'm not even an adult, you know? I was expecting to be the youngest person here, but Feldt…"

"Veda doesn't discriminate by age," Ian says, though there's a little frown on his face—and Lockon realizes quickly that he's not entirely comfortable with it himself. "You've got the credentials and the drive to help us—that's all we really need. But the way this crew is shaping up…" He trails off, shaking his head.

"What do you mean?" she asks after a moment, and Ian breathes out sharply through his nose.

"It makes sense that it's the young people who still think they can change the world," he says. "I just wish there were more of us old hands to lead the front lines, instead."

.

.

By the end of the week, Lockon's sitting in the colony's medical bay, and has started to realize exactly what she's gotten into with this job.

She's known going in that she'll be piloting a mobile suit, fighting trained military men in less than five years' time. She's known she's going to end up killing people, even if she's already talked it over with Ian and he said (looking incredibly offended) that Dynames and its guns are certainly precise enough to disable a suit without killing its pilot. She's known she's throwing away the rest of her life (however long it may be) for this organization that the world will grow to hate.

What she hasn't expected is exactly how _messed up_ the rest of the crew is.

"Thanks for coming," Doctor Moreno says, smiling at her from behind his terminal as he types something up quickly. "Like I said, we're not expecting anything to be wrong, but Veda requires we be thorough, and anyway—we need to inject you with nanomachines to ensure you don't undergo unnecessary physiological changes during long stints in space."

"Okay," she says, and tries not to hug herself as she sits on the exam table. It's silly; her dad wasn't a general practitioner, or even a doctor who saw patients in such a mundane setting as this. He was a trauma surgeon, and seeing a doctor for a routine check-up should not bring up such strong memories of her father, but—

"Is something wrong?" he asks with a frown, hesitating before wheeling his chair around to look at her better. She doesn't say anything immediately, and his frown deepens. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about—this is a medical setting. Everything we discuss will be confidential."

"Unless it affects the Plan," she mutters, but it makes sense, and there's no heat behind it. "That's not it, I just…"

She swallows, wonders whether this would be a breach of security, and then decides it probably doesn't matter. "My dad, he was a doctor," she says quietly, and Doctor Moreno's brows rise. "Doctor's offices just…remind me of him, a little more than I'm comfortable with."

Doctor Moreno breathes out a little heavily, looking at her closely for several seconds. "I'm not going to pretend I'm any sort of psychiatrist," he says eventually, "but if there's anything you need to discuss that would break our confidentiality rules, Miss Sumeragi and Tieria can't stop me from trying to help."

She looks at him, then, a little surprised, and he huffs at the look on her face. "I took an oath to help everyone I can," he says. "Veda isn't going to stop me from doing my job."

"I'll…keep that in mind," she says, a little taken aback. She appreciates it, on some level (especially for the fact that he's risking Tieria's wrath for doing so), but she has never wanted to try and talk about her feelings or her grief, even immediately after their deaths. Though she's sure Doctor Moreno means well, he never knew her parents or her brothers—and so she's not sure that he'd be able to help her, especially when no one else has.

He looks at her like he knows exactly what she's thinking, before shaking his head. "You have to have realized by now that everyone in this crew has their own traumas," he says quietly. "I'm honestly not surprised—it takes a certain kind of person to join Celestial Being, I think. I don't know anything about your history, or why you decided to join us, but if there's anything I can do to help, you only need to ask."

Lockon grimaces a bit; the others' traumas are often clear on their faces, and she'd like to think she's better at hiding it than most. The fact that this doctor, whom she's barely met, can see through her so easily, is a little frightening. "Thank you," she says eventually, eager to be off the subject, and Doctor Moreno smiles (a bit sadly, she thinks) and obliges.

.

.

For some of them, it's obvious that there's something wrong. For others, it takes a little longer for Lockon to realize that the doctor was right.

Feldt is quiet—quieter than anyone Lockon thinks she's ever met—and always seems surprised when someone sits beside her in the mess hall, whenever Lockon requests her help on learning the ropes of maintaining her Gundam. Ian is often busy working on Kyrios and Exia, after all, and Tieria is only to be approached as a last resort—and Feldt spends a surprising amount of time in the hangars, especially when she's told Lockon that she's ultimately working on the bridge.

"I've spent a lot of time with the Haros," she says when Lockon asks, and she decides not to bring up the fact that she seems to get along better with the Haros than with the rest of the crew. But then, she's years younger than anyone else Lockon's seen on the colony, so she probably finds it hard to make friends—even if Chris seems hell-bent on rectifying that as soon as possible.

Miss Sumeragi, as it turns out, does carry around alcohol in her tumbler—and Lockon stares for longer than she probably should when she realizes this, one night in the mess hall. "She's been doing that since before I got recruited," Lasse says to her quietly, when she remembers herself and looks quickly back down to her meal. "She says it makes her more productive, and from what we've seen of her forecasts, they line up pretty close with Veda's. It's just…"

He trails off with a little shrug, and Amy figures there's not much more to say about that, anyway. If Veda chose her, despite her—problem, then she supposes none of them are one to question it. Veda seems to be treated as something of a god around here, after all (badmouthing it in front of Tieria results in an angry half-hour lecture about why _exactly_ you're wrong), and if Miss Sumeragi was hand-picked by the smartest supercomputer on the planet…

Ian leaves a couple of months after Lockon arrived, saying he's going to collect their helmsman, and the crew—even Tieria, even Feldt—seems curious about this new arrival. He's gone for nearly a week before returning with a scrawny kid a couple years younger than Lockon, who's all nervous smiles and bright eyes as Ian introduces them all to Lichtendahl Tsery.

"I know it's hard to say," the kid says with a little laugh, and his accent is thick—eastern European, Lockon thinks, and it probably explains some of his hesitance. "You can call me Lichty, if you want."

Tieria frowns sharply at him from beside Lockon, and she frowns at him in turn; just because Celestial Being uses English to communicate doesn't mean its members come exclusively from countries that speak it. Lasse and Sumeragi sound like it's not their native tongue, either, and if Lichty was chosen by Veda, then surely he's intelligent enough to improve his fluency when he's surrounded by the language, anyway.

She notes with some curiosity that he seems comfortable in the low gravity—much more than she did—and smiles back at him as he looks tentatively around the room. He looks uncomfortable, like he feels out of place—though he's doing a decent job of hiding it. When the formal introductions are over, Chris moves forward quickly, beaming at him and introducing herself, saying they'll be working together on the bridge so they'll have to be good friends, right?

Lichty latches onto this, his face relaxing a little as he agrees—and apologizes a bit sheepishly for his English. Lasse, who's nearby, dismisses his concern—"Mine was even worse when I got here, you'll pick things up soon enough"—and Lockon beams at him as Lichty relaxes more.

He's a teenager who's dropped everything to join this organization, just like her, just like Chris and Lasse and the rest of this small crew, and Lockon decides that helping him get settled in is only the right thing to do. She offers to show him around the colony, show him all the areas he'll need regularly—and his face lights up as he agrees quickly.

He seems a little too eager to please, as he follows behind her and Chris on the transporters—a little loud and a little stiff and a little jumpy as he tries to keep track of this huge colony and all its inhabitants. But Lockon supposes this isn't too much different from Chris (and even herself)—and even if Lichty Tsery has been to space before, he's still just joined a terrorist organization full of strangers. If he wasn't uncomfortable, Lockon would be worried.

She's starting to realize exactly Ian's discomfort, though, as she looks at Lichty's apparent age and then considers the rest of the crew: teenagers and young adults all of them, even Miss Sumeragi, and she wonders what has driven them all to such ends even as she realizes that Ian is likely right.

The older you get, the more you're willing to be complacent and accept the world you've existed in for so long. The younger you are, the more likely it is that you think the world can still be changed for the better—that you need to do it with your own hands.

Not everyone thinks along this dichotomy, of course—but Lockon remembers her own past, exactly what made her realize that the world needs to change—and then looks to her crewmates and remembers her family. Neil would have loved Lichty, she thinks, for his toothy smile and eagerness to be friends—and Chris, she thinks, might have helped Lyle start to thaw.

She thinks they might have gotten along with her brothers but her brothers are dead—and they will never know the friends she has come to make, among these terrorists who are willing to kill for peace. Lockon looks at those around her and then looks at her own hands—calloused, from years of handling guns and now months behind the throttles of a Gundam—and then she wonders, if they could have seen the crew around her, whether her brothers would have understood her choices after all.

.

.

.

.

Chris approaches her a couple months later, a bright smile on her face and Feldt trailing behind her, and says that Miss Sumeragi is sending the two of them to America so they can wire up one of their last safe houses for security and comms—and wants them to bring someone who can fight, as a precaution.

Lockon looks askance at her—wonders whether her friend might have convinced Miss Sumeragi to add that last part herself. But it's true: Tieria and Lasse have been teaching her hand-to-hand combat nearly since she arrived. ("Dynames has beam sabers for a reason," Lasse had said with a shrug, and "Veda requires it" came from Tieria, and she figured that learning to defend herself without her guns definitely couldn't hurt.) Chris and Feldt, she's sure, have never touched a gun in their lives; she certainly isn't comfortable with the idea of sending the two of them down to Earth for work without backup.

The fact that _she's_ that backup is a little less reassuring.

"We should be able to get it done in a day," Chris says, her grin growing a bit mischievous as she glances back to Feldt. "But we have three full days on the surface—and the house isn't too far from a big city, you know? If you needed to grab anything, winter clothes or a new purse or…"

Lockon snorts, a smile growing on her face as Feldt rolls her eyes. "I'm not sure you're giving me much of a choice," she points out, and Chris looks scandalized.

"You don't _have_ to," she says, "but I mean, it's always fun to get new clothes, right? Especially with our stipends, you can buy basically whatever you want!"

Lockon snorts again, looking to Feldt, who seems to all but live in normal suits and tight jumpsuits that seem like something out of a sci-fi movie. She can't actually recall ever seeing her in normal clothes. "I guess that doesn't sound too bad," she admits, and Chris beams at her—

"Great! We're leaving in two days, so pack up all your stuff before then—we'll take a shuttle to the elevator and go from there!"

.

.

It's the first time Lockon's been to Earth since she was recruited, and the gravity is more comforting than she was expecting as the elevator sends them back into the atmosphere.

"It's weird, huh?" Chris asks with a grin as Lockon blinks, tries to reorient herself with the unexpected weight. "You'll get used to it soon, I promise—especially since you'll be going up and down the elevator so often, once we actually get started."

Feldt seems unbothered by the gravity, but then, she doesn't seem bothered by most things; Lockon's actually concerned about whether there's something seriously wrong. But Chris seems convinced that she's just shy, that pushing her to go out and do "normal teenager stuff" will help her out of her shell, and Lockon figures that's as good as any other strategy when they have no way of knowing why she's like this in the first place.

"So, there's gonna be a car for us at the airport," Chris says brightly, "and we'll drive out to the house from there. If we start early tomorrow, we should be finished by dinnertime—and then Friday and Saturday will be free for shopping!" She grins at them both, and Lockon smiles tentatively in return. "Is there anything in particular you guys want to pick up?"

Feldt shakes her head wordlessly—and Chris, undeterred, turns to Lockon. "Maybe some new sweaters?" she suggests, not wanting to leave Chris in the cold. "And—a new bag, my purse is a little old."

"Sounds great!" Chris' face lights up, and Lockon sets aside the fact that she honestly needs neither of these things as Chris continues, "I want a new coat and some boots for sure, and maybe some jewelry? Feldt, we should pick up some for you too—I bet we could find a necklace you'd like!"

Feldt blinks and nods, a bit tentatively, and Chris beams at her.

The rest of the trip is filled with chatter from Chris (and occasionally Lockon, she will admit) and comfortable silence, and soon they've found themselves outside a nicely appointed house in a suburb. Chris throws open the driver's door and goes to pull her bags out of the trunk as Lockon and Feldt get out of the car slowly. The house looks like all the others in the neighborhood, but Miss Sumeragi had assured them that it's physically adapted and ready to house agents between missions; all that's left to do is connect it to Krung Thep without a trace, and secure its internet connection against any would-be hackers.

Lockon knows she'll be useless for the better part of tomorrow (putting aside the extremely unlikely possibility that they're attacked), and so only follows Feldt and Chris into the house, promising to stay out of their way but offering whatever help they might need. Feldt nods solemnly, and Chris thanks her, saying they'll probably need food at some point but otherwise she'll have the day to herself.

She ends up spending most of her Thursday watching television on the huge screen in the great room, and surfing the internet as soon as the others hook it up. She makes a take-out run for lunch and dinner (Chris declines her offer of groceries—"We're gonna eat out this weekend!") and otherwise attempts to stay out of their way as they toss about terms that fly way over her head.

"Done!" Chris declares with a whoop a few hours after dark, just as Lockon was starting to nod off on the couch. Even Feldt looks pleased as she sits back from her terminal and stretches, and Lockon grins to them as Chris moves toward the yet-untouched dinner warming in the oven.

"Just so you know, you're both way smarter than me," she says, stretching herself and following Chris into the kitchen. "I'd never be able to do half of what you guys just did."

Chris waves a hand, giving a cry of delight as she retrieves the Indian food Lockon ordered, all but lunging for a bowl. "Sniping isn't easy work, either," she says. "Wind speeds and lead times and—a bunch of other stuff I don't even know about! Miss Sumeragi told you about the substratospheric gun, right? That she thinks you'll be able to fire it? That's _incredible—_ "

Lockon rolls her eyes, retrieving a bowl of her own and spooning some rice into it. "Sure," she says, "but without you guys we wouldn't even be able to build these Gundams, let alone start actually _using_ them, right?"

Chris huffs in her general direction, but seems too elated by their success today to truly argue the point. "So, I was thinking," she says brightly, and Lockon thinks she hears Feldt sigh somewhere behind her, "we let ourselves sleep in tomorrow for all our hard work, and then grab brunch before going shopping!" She looks between the two of them, gauging interest, and Lockon supposes that it doesn't sound like a terrible plan.

"I thought taking ourselves out to dinner somewhere nice on Saturday might be fun," she continues, clearly encouraged, "so we could pick up some dresses for that—and I bet swimsuits will be cheap this time of year, Miss Sumeragi _has_ to let us spend some summertime on Earth—"

She continues as they eat dinner, occasionally asking for input and clearly trying to make this a group outing, rather than something orchestrated only by her. Lockon appreciates the thought, but honestly, she hasn't done this in so long that she feels out of her depth—and mostly agrees with whatever Chris is saying, offering small input when she can.

Feldt seems even more overwhelmed, but Chris eventually gets out of her that some tank tops, jeans, and boots for working in the hangar could be helpful—and she adds it to the list on her phone that's growing alarmingly long. "We've only got two days, you know," Lockon points out, and Chris laughs—

"I'm sure we'll be fine! We're not gonna be doing much else, are we? I looked it up, there's a great mall just a couple miles away with a ton of clothing and tech stores—I could use some new headphones, and it's fun to drool over the newest models, right?"

Even Feldt seems interested in this, and Lockon stifles a laugh—sure they're going to spend some decent time browsing electronics. "Sounds great," she says, and listens as Chris' plans continue.

.

.

Despite the late start on both Friday and Saturday mornings, Lockon is utterly exhausted as they just about clear the entire mall by late Saturday afternoon. Both days, all three of them are laden down with bags—so many, that an exhausted Feldt is starting to list to the side as she walks out toward their car.

Lockon supposes their shopping spree was a success by any account; she's just about doubled her wardrobe, with the sheer number of sweaters and other clothes Chris threw at her that _would look adorable on you!_ Feldt has a couple dozen new shirts and three new pairs of jeans and boots, and plenty of jewelry, bags, and charms that Lockon's sure she'll never use. Chris came out ahead, though—and Lockon's not entirely sure how she's carrying so many bags and still managing such pep in the parking lot, talking about the restaurant she's got reservations for, how they're going to have to hurry back to the house and change before heading over—

Movement catches Amy's eye to her right, and she glances over to see a couple of men leaning against a truck's tailgate, looking their way. She frowns but only picks up her pace a bit, making sure Chris and Feldt are following close behind. She's probably just being paranoid; after all, it's not even dark out yet, and there are plenty of other people in the lot right now—and there wouldn't be any serious threat to their lives, not when Celestial Being won't show its face for another three years—

"Hey, sweethearts," one of them yells, and when Lockon looks over again, he's walking quickly their way. Chris glances over, and her forehead creases; she readjusts her bags to her forearm, grabs Feldt's arm, and walks faster.

"Hey!" he says, even louder, jogging to close the distance—and Amy wishes she had a hand free to slide into her bag. He's bigger than her by a fair margin, but she wouldn't normally be worried; assholes, she can deal with. But she doesn't know if he or his friend are armed, and Chris and Feldt are with her, and—

"You're going out to dinner?" he asks, catching up with them and matching pace, something nasty on his face as he looks Lockon and Chris up and down. "How about me and my friend join you, take you home after? Your sister could come too, if she wanted," he says, glancing to Feldt with a little grin, and she frowns at him even as Lockon stops, plants herself between her friends and this man, and audibly _snarls_ up at him—

"Leave us alone."

"You interested?" he asks, his grin growing wider as he takes a step closer. Lockon doesn't move back—she sees his friend moving quickly toward them as well, and knows that it will be a nasty fight, if it comes down to it. She drops the bags in her right hand and ignores the clothes spilling across the asphalt as her hand finds the gun in her purse.

"What makes you think we would ever be interested in _you?_ " she asks, her tone hard, and the guy actually seems a little surprised before he seems to regain his confidence.

"A few pretty girls alone at the mall, thought we could show you a good time. C'mon, let's go—"

Lockon does not realize she's reacted to the grip on her arm until there's a gun in her hand, pressed against his stomach between their bodies, uncomfortably close. "You leave us the fuck alone," she says, and does not recognize the voice coming out of her mouth, "or you won't do anything ever again."

The man's frozen, his hand on her arm spasming, his eyes trained on the gun—and she jams it in again, beneath his ribs. He releases her, then, his eyes wide in panic, and takes several quick steps back. After staring for a few more seconds as if wondering if she's going to shoot, he turns tail and sprints the other way—and his friend's not far behind, when he sees what's in her hand.

Lockon puts the gun back in her bag (realizes in some horror that the safety is turned off), and does not realize her hands are shaking until she's leaning down to pick up her clothes, and finds it nearly impossible.

"Lockon…" And then Chris is there, her face pasty and one hand still holding Feldt in an iron grip as she leans down to help with the clothes. "Let's go back, yeah? They—they're gone, they drove off, it's okay now."

Lockon blinks at her, feels something relax in her face—and then looks to Feldt (who's white-faced but staring intently at her) before ducking her head, focusing on her hands and finishing re-packing the bags.

"Let's just go back to the house," Chris says again, her voice wavering. "I'll—I'll cancel the reservations, I don't think I want to go out tonight."

"Yeah," Lockon says, and her voice is a little strangled as she accepts Feldt's hand up. "I—wanna go home."

.

.

Lockon's never considered herself a dangerous person.

She knows that she's a natural with all sorts of guns; she knows that she would not find it tactically difficult to kill people. She knows that she has been recruited to do just that, in a few years' time, piloting a mobile suit years ahead of anything the government has in production. She understands that she is well on her way to being able to beat the shit out of people even without her guns, thanks to Lasse and Tieria's instruction—and she has long been assured in her ability to protect herself.

But on the car ride back to the house—lying awake that night for hours—she finds that she cannot stop her hands from shaking, and cannot get that man's petrified face out of her mind.

She's never pointed a gun at a real person before. Somehow, she was expecting it to be the same as pretending paper lived and breathed and legislated and threatened people weaker than themselves.

(It's not, and for the first time she seriously wonders whether she's cut out for this—whether she should be a Gundam Meister, if she cannot even handle holding someone at gunpoint.)

Chris and Feldt are equally quiet for the rest of the trip; though Feldt didn't seem to grasp exactly what the man was implying, she understood the gist of it—and apparently realized enough when he grabbed Lockon. She asks her quietly if her arm is all right, late that night when they run into each other in the living room. Lockon's long given up on sleep; she just wishes the glass of milk she's poured would do anything to help.

"It's okay," Lockon says, her voice very quiet. "Are you all right?"

She is of course fine physically, and Feldt blinks at her before apparently realizing. "You're Lockon Stratos," she says eventually, her voice a little stronger. "I trust you to protect us—I never thought we were in serious danger."

Lockon swallows, squeezes her eyes shut. "I've never threatened anyone with a gun before," she says eventually. "I've only ever shot at paper and ceramic—it's—it's not the same, you know?"

Feldt likely doesn't know; she can't be older than eleven, and no matter how she grew up on Celestial Being's secret base, Lockon feels confident assuming she has never threatened to kill someone. She doesn't say anything for several moments, and Lockon has accepted that she's probably not going to—but then Feldt sits close beside her on the couch.

"Thank you for protecting us," she says, not looking at Lockon as she stares into her own glass. "It was hard for you, but you did it anyway."

"You're my friends," she says, and hesitates before putting an arm around Feldt's shoulders. "I'll do whatever I can for you, or Chris, or anyone else in the crew."

Feldt ducks her head, pulls her glass a little closer to her chest, and doesn't seem to know how to reply.

.

.

Lockon knows that leaving the gun behind in the safehouse is necessary for a smooth trip back up to Krung Thep, but as she locks it back in the safe and follows Chris and Feldt out the door, her hands feel empty and her back feels exposed.

The military guards the elevators, she knows, and there will be plenty of security at every airport—if something goes wrong, they will have backup. But after what happened yesterday, she feels unsafe and jumpy as Chris drives them back to the airport, her own hands shaking on the steering wheel.

The trip is uneventful and quiet, and they're greeted by Sumeragi once the shuttle docks on the colony. "Everything went well?" she asks, something of a skeptical smile on her face as she sees the bags stacked in the loading bay. "It looks like you had plenty of extra time after securing the house."

"Yeah," Chris says, though without her usual cheer, and Sumeragi frowns at her before her gaze slides to Feldt and Lockon.

"Lockon, I'll need a debrief," she says eventually, and she only nods, preparing to sleep in her own bed for the next twelve hours, and talk to her commander tomorrow. Miss Sumeragi doesn't seem interested in talking immediately, anyway; she's already moved away from the shuttle, pushing off purposefully down the hall.

Lockon smiles wearily to Chris and Feldt and does the same, leaving her luggage for the Haros to collect and focusing only on trying to relax as she floats down the hall.

It was her first trip to Earth since she was recruited; it should have been a good one, comforting and reassuring for her who has spent all her life in Earth's gravity. And it _was,_ until she realized that she is dangerous—that she has the capacity to _kill._

She makes her way to her room, unlocks it with shaking hands, and ignores Haro's greetings as she goes immediately to bed.

.

.

A meeting with Miss Sumeragi is on her schedule when she wakes the next morning, and she attempts to make herself presentable before moving to the specified conference room. Her commander is there already, her tumbler, always, in hand and a concerned look on her face as she watches Lockon walk in.

"What happened?" she asks after a beat of silence and Lockon, sighs, runs a hand through her hair.

"Nothing awful," she says, trying to reassure, to tell her that it's nothing that will compromise them, but Miss Sumeragi's brows furrow. "We were—we were leaving the mall, on Saturday, and a couple of creeps came up and wouldn't listen when we told them to leave us alone. One of them grabbed me, and I pulled a gun on him."

Miss Sumeragi squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. "You didn't shoot him," she says—nearly asks—and Lockon shakes her head.

"I just—I've never—" she stumbles, and her commander waits patiently, "it's stupid, but I've never—pointed a gun at a real person before. It was…"

"A perfectly normal reaction," she says, and there's something like empathy behind her gaze as she smiles bitterly at her. "It was going to happen eventually—better that you struggle with it now than on the battlefield."

"But I…" she trails off, unsure of whether she should voice these concerns at all, "it's made me wonder if I should even be a Gundam Meister. I can't even _threaten_ someone without breaking down, how am I going to—?"

"You'll do it because you have to," Miss Sumeragi says, and takes a long drink. "On Saturday, you were protecting Chris and Feldt. In Dynames, you'll either kill the other soldiers or be killed yourself."

"I can't just have a breakdown after every battle," she points out, and Sumeragi shakes her head.

"I don't think you will," she says, and does not elaborate. "Are you up for simulations today? Tieria's been restless. After he hears what happened, even he won't be able to blame you for being on Earth—but you probably shouldn't leave him hanging too long."

"Does he have to know?" she asks, a little desperate—Tieria hearing about this would just be the _icing on the cake,_ and she really, _really_ doesn't want to deal with him today.

"I'll need to archive it in Veda," Miss Sumeragi says apologetically. "He'll almost definitely read the report. If he says anything nasty, let me know—I'll make sure I set him straight. But even he has to realize—if you weren't there, that would have gone downhill for Feldt and Chris very quickly."

Lockon swallows, unsure of how to respond to this—and Miss Sumeragi sighs. "I think it would be good for you to try and get some work done today," she says eventually. "If you can't, you can take the day off—but you really do need to get back in the simulators."

"I know," she says, attempting to uncurl herself and uncross her arms. "I'll go down to the hangar now."

Miss Sumeragi smiles, then, and reaches to touch Lockon's shoulder. "You did the right thing, down there," she says, and Lockon looks up. "That type of man is everywhere—he wouldn't have let up if you didn't threaten him. You did what you needed to do to protect yourself and your friends."

Lockon nods—thinks that, once upon a time, her aunt would have had a very different reaction to her instinctive violence—but shoves it down and away. "Thank you," she says quietly, and Miss Sumeragi squeezes her shoulder gently before letting her hand fall.

.

.

Tieria is in the hangar when she arrives with Orange Haro, but curiously, so are Lasse and Lichty; she frowns at them even as Tieria nods sharply to her, clearly happy she's not wasting any more time before getting back to work.

"What are you guys doing here?" she asks Lichty and Lasse, rather at a loss—and Lasse grins a bit at her as Lichty answers—

"We were wondering if we could watch you in simulation," he says earnestly, and Lockon's brows rise significantly. "We just—realized we haven't seen you in action before, and it'd be really _really_ cool to see a Gundam Meister fight, you know?"

"You're gonna get plenty of it in a few years," Lockon points out, and Lichty flushes a bit, but she doesn't mean anything cruel by it. "Seriously, what's up?"

"Chris and Feldt told us what happened on Earth," Lasse says, and Lockon's stomach flips; she exhales sharply, tries not to let it show on her face. "We're seriously impressed—just thought it'd be cool to see you in action. If you don't want us watching, it's totally fine, but…"

"What happened on Earth?" Tieria asks sharply, and Lockon squeezes her eyes shut, catches the suddenly apologetic look on Lasse's face, and turns to her fellow Meister.

"Nothing serious," she says, and continues before he can argue, "a couple of creeps in a parking lot tried to mess with us—I scared them off. No harm done, nothing compromised the Plan. That's what you're worried about, right?"

Tieria only continues frowning at her, but doesn't say anything in reply—and eventually Lockon turns back to Lichty and Lasse. "If you want to watch the simulations in one of the conference rooms, that's fine," she says, and Lichty's face lights up. "It'll just be the screens, not the cockpit, but there's nothing interesting in there anyway."

"Thanks so much!" Lichty says, all but bouncing his way to the door, and Lasse nods to her, a grin on his face as well before following behind. "You wanna join in?" she asks Tieria, but he shakes his head, muttering something about Veda before pushing off in the opposite direction—toward the terminal he seems to spend so much time in.

Lockon frowns after him but figures it's not her problem, and throws Haro up toward the cockpit before pushing off herself. As she settles in and powers everything up, she feels more at ease than she thought she would—and several simulated battles go by before she even really realizes it. She's on autopilot, more than anything—but when she glances to her scores between runs, they're as good as they've ever been.

On the next one, she actually tries—and does even better.

She's in the sims for a couple of hours before finally sitting back, sweaty and tired—but feeling more satisfied than she thinks she should. She pulls off her helmet, wipes her wrist across her forehead, and ruffles her hair up absentmindedly as she exits Dynames' cockpit. She realizes rather belatedly that Lasse and Lichty were probably not expecting her to practice so long—she'll likely find them back on the bridge, and she plans to go apologize to them for wasting their time. But the hangar doors burst open just as she's approaching them, and Lichty is standing there, one hand on the doorframe and his gaze all but starry-eyed as he stares at her.

"That was _amazing,_ " he says breathlessly, and she smiles a bit nervously as she looks between him and Lasse, behind him. "I mean, I knew you had to be good, to be a Meister, but—"

"Looks like you set a few new records," Lasse says when Lichty takes a breath, his eyebrows rising though he also looks impressed. "But yeah—damn, I didn't know what to expect, but that wasn't it."

"I mean, I've been training for almost a year," she says, a little bemused, and Lasse laughs, his brows rising further.

"A 90% hit rate during active battle? That's better than anything _I've_ ever seen."

Lockon means to reply, but movement behind Lasse catches her eye; Tieria is moving quickly toward her, a deep frown on his face. Lockon tries not to sigh, hopes desperately he is not here to chew her out for what happened on Earth. When they see she's distracted, Lichty and Lasse turn too, and Lichty scrambles out of Tieria's way as he moves forward.

"Lockon Stratos," he says, in that strange, stiff way of his. "I found security footage of that mall parking lot in Veda."

Lockon's jaw clenches, and she crosses her arms over her chest as she stares at Tieria. "Why?" she asks eventually. "Miss Sumeragi said she submitted a report."

"I wanted to see what happened with my own eyes," he says, and something twists in his face as he continues, "You handled the situation exactly as would be expected of a Gundam Meister."

Amy blinks at him, glancing to Lasse and Lichty—both of whom are staring at Tieria like he's just sprouted a second head. "I was protecting Feldt and Chris," she says after a moment, and Tieria nods sharply.

"You protected Celestial Being's assets, even while outnumbered and fighting men significantly larger than yourself in hand-to-hand combat. All without compromising the Plan." He looks at her levelly, though something Lockon might almost mistake for approval is creeping over his features. "So long as it was not a fluke, perhaps you are more worthy of Dynames than I first thought."

Lockon opens her mouth, can't think of anything to say, and closes it again—shifting her weight as she stares at him. "I…appreciate the compliment," she says eventually, because she doesn't think she's ever heard Tieria give anyone such high praise—and he nods sharply.

"Your simulator scores have risen as well," he says, glancing to Dynames, behind her, "but they have plenty of room for further improvement. I hope you will not slack off from your training."

"I wasn't planning on it," she says, still nearly stumbling over her words, still unsure of what to do with this new side of Tieria.

He nods sharply to her, pushes past Lichty and Lasse, and enters the hangar.

Lockon lets the door slide shut behind her, and turns to the other two; Lichty is staring at the hangar door open-mouthed, and Lasse blinks at her before a little grin appears on his face. "I think that means you did good," he says, a laugh slipping in at the end. "If I hadn't seen that with my own eyes, I'd never believe it happened for a second."

"No _kidding,_ " Lichty says, something like awe in his voice as he turns to Lockon. "Haro, did you record that? The others are gonna _flip_ —"

The three of them (and Haro, who beeps happily at them that he records everything in his vicinity for Veda) make their way down the hall. Lockon was originally planning to shower before she went to the mess hall for lunch, but Lichty is evidently set on telling the others as soon as possible—even if the Meister in question is sweaty and smells awful. She decides it doesn't matter, if he's so excited about it.

She just hopes Tieria's opinion of her doesn't tank again when he realizes that she's complicit in showing the rest of the crew his rare moment of approval.

.

.

.

.

Barring the incident on Earth, Lockon feels like she's done an excellent job of keeping a lid on her temper—and she feels more relaxed on Krung Thep than she ever did as a teenager in Ireland.

This is helped, she thinks, by the fact that she's no longer surrounded by reminders of her family that are so quick to set her off—she is thousands and thousands of miles away from home, just about as far away as she can get, and she's been kept so busy with simulations and other training, these past months, that she honestly hasn't had time to be upset.

On some level, she feels guilty, like she isn't allotting enough time to remembering her family—but on another, she realizes that it's probably healthier for her this way. She's okay, she thinks, with a goal and with so many distractions—and maybe the temper that was so close beneath the surface in Ireland has finally started to subside.

She realizes she's very wrong, sitting in the mess hall after a long afternoon in the simulators several weeks later. She thinks things in her head have finally started to right themselves—she accepts and even embraces the fact that she has the ability to kill. But today has been very long, and she's exhausted and ready to go to bed immediately after dinner. Then, she's approached by a very excited Chris.

"So I was thinking," she says brightly, sitting beside Lockon and pulling open her meal tray, "even if our ages are supposed to be confidential, I can't think of any reason _birthdays_ should be, yeah? What do you think about getting a roster together for the crew? We could have little parties for everyone too, whenever we've got downtime!"

"Sounds reasonable," Lockon admits quietly, resigning herself to conversation—though she's ready to turn down a request for her own birthday. "Have you asked Miss Sumeragi?"

"She didn't have a problem with it," she beams. "I thought maybe we could start with our birthdays, and then split up to cover more ground with the rest of the crew? It'd give us more stuff to celebrate!"

Lockon nods, not nearly as excited; after all, if others want to celebrate their birthdays, she can't stop them—but any reminder of her own is a sure way to ruin her evening. "So, mine's on March 29," Chris continues after another moment, and shows Lockon her terminal, open to a note titled CREW BIRTHDAYS. So far, it only includes hers and Miss Sumeragi's. "When's yours?"

"I don't celebrate it," she says, glancing up to look Chris in the eyes before returning to her meal. "I'll help getting the others', but…"

"What do you mean, you don't celebrate it?" Chris asks, blinking at her in surprise. "It's your _birthday_ —!"

"I don't celebrate it," she says again, a little stronger, and feels a spark of irritation as Chris' expression only grows determined.

"I mean, if it's because you didn't have anyone to celebrate with, we can start now," she says, as if she can't think of any other reason not to have a birthday party, and Amy squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, desperate not to start thinking of her family's last day. It doesn't work. "Or if you're embarrassed—"

"I haven't celebrated my birthday since I was eleven," she snaps, cutting her off, and Chris shrinks back a little; her face falls in what Lockon thinks might be true fear. But she's angry, now, and she can't just turn it off. "I can't tell you why unless you want to fight Tieria for it."

Chris' lip wobbles a bit, and Lockon can't quite find it in her to feel bad about it. "If you're sure," she says eventually, her voice small, and tucks her phone back into her pocket. Lockon suddenly finds herself without an appetite, with nausea coursing through her at such a stark, unknowing attack on her family.

That's not what it is, and Chris has no way of knowing—and Lockon knows she's being unreasonable. But before she can find it in her to apologize, she knows she needs to get away and calm down in her cabin. She shoves up from the table abruptly, grabs her half-finished tray of food, and throws it in the recycler on her way out, the white noise in her ears blocking out Chris' voice as she calls after her.

.

.

Later that night she's still awake despite her exhaustion, and marginally calmer—hugging her bear tight to her chest and staring at pictures of her family—when there's a sharp knock on the door. "Lockon," Miss Sumeragi says, and she swears under her breath, swinging upright on her bed and telling her commander to let herself in, rubbing at her eyes quickly.

"You made Chris cry," Miss Sumeragi says as greeting, sitting at Lockon's desk and staring at her—taking in her own red and puffy eyes.

"I didn't—" she stutters, falters, and realizes that's likely exactly what happened. She runs a hand through her hair, looks away, and finds she doesn't have much of an excuse.

"She said she told you about her birthday project," Miss Sumeragi continues, and Lockon nods a bit. "I think you got the point across—she's not going to bother you about it anymore. But she said you were scaring her—that your face looked exactly like it did when you were harassed on Earth. I'm going to assume that was not on purpose."

Lockon stills, at that, and can't do anything but shake her head. Was she really that angry, an hour ago? Did a mention of her family's deaths enrage her just as much as an active threat to her friends' well-being? Sumeragi continues, "No matter what you intended, or what happened when you were younger, I can't say that was appropriate behavior."

"Yeah," she says quietly. "I just—it's been so long since anyone's brought up my birthday, even family. I can't…"

Sumeragi grimaces, looks to the bear still in her loose grip, and then to the photographs scattered across her bed. "I expected better of you," she says—not harshly, but Lockon flinches all the same. "You're an excellent pilot, and much better with people than Tieria—and, if our candidates for Kyrios and Exia accept, I won't be surprised if you end up the leader of the Meisters."

"What?" Lockon says sharply, sitting up straighter. "I'm _eighteen,_ you can't expect—"

"You're well-adjusted, or at least better at pretending than most," Miss Sumeragi says, and Lockon huffs disbelievingly, because she is _absolutely_ anything but. "No matter the case, you're going to need to be the bigger person and set aside your history to make sure the rest of your team is safe. That's twice as important, if you're leading the others."

"You know about my past," Lockon says, not quite a challenge, and Sumeragi sighs a bit. "You can't just expect me to _forget my family_ —"

"I'm not asking you to," she says, not quite sharp. "I'm expecting you to put the safety of the living before the memory of the dead. Can I count on you to do that?"

.

.

"Chris," Lockon says quietly the next day, standing behind her in line for breakfast—and Chris jumps badly, turning to look at her with wide eyes. "I…I want to apologize, for yesterday. I shouldn't have lost my temper like that—I didn't mean to scare you. And—I _swear,_ I never would have hurt you, no matter how angry I was."

"It's okay," she says, a little smile on her face as she waves her hand. "I know I shouldn't have pushed you about it, that was rude of me."

"Still," Lockon presses, because Chris still looks uncomfortable, her hands shaking and her gaze not quite meeting Lockon's as she grabs a tray from the dispensers and heads toward a table. "Even if it—does involve my past, I should have just told you so. There was no reason for me to yell at you about it."

Chris nods but doesn't say anything in return, and Lockon hesitates, wondering how she can make amends with maybe the closest friend she has on this colony. "I'll be the one to ask Tieria when his birthday is, if it'll make you feel better," she says eventually, and internally winces at the thought of their tentative camaraderie shattering at the query. Chris laughs, her eyes flying wide in surprise as she stares at Lockon.

"I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy," she says, but Lockon thinks something's relaxed in her face as she gestures for her to sit with her and Feldt. "Seriously, don't worry about it—I was planning on just asking Sumeragi when it was and throwing him a surprise party!"

"Tieria won't like that," Feldt says quietly, and Lockon snorts as Chris grins over at her.

"He won't be able to stop us if it's already going!" she says confidently, her grin nearly as wide as usual, and Lockon laughs along, glad that Chris is so quick to forgive—even when Lockon was so clearly in the wrong.

They have to eat quickly before their shifts start, but before they part ways outside the mess hall, Chris grabs Lockon and pulls her into a tight hug for several seconds. Lockon freezes; the last time she got a hug was when her aunt dropped her off at the airport, after all—but after only a moment she returns it gently, hoping it will make Chris feel better.

After only another moment Chris releases her, and her eyes are a little bright as she waves and pulls Feldt down the hall. But Lockon finds herself smiling and waving back, and for the rest of the day she feels like maybe that hug helped her, too.

.

.

.

.

It's the tail-end of winter when Miss Sumeragi announces that Veda has selected Kyrios' pilot, that they need someone to travel to Moscow to talk to him and bring him on board. "It may be a little tricky getting to him," she explains to the assembled crew. "He's in a nasty part of the city—I don't want to send anyone without combat training, in case something goes wrong."

She looks to Lockon and then to Lasse, who snorts and looks to Tieria. "What, you think he's not a done deal like Lockon was?" he asks—and Tieria, furious, opens his mouth to reply—but Miss Sumeragi talks over him:

"Tieria stands out too much, especially for the slums of an HRL city," she says. "Do either of you speak Russian or Mandarin?"

Amy shakes her head, glancing up to Lasse, who does the same. "Worth a shot," Miss Sumeragi mutters. "Veda says he probably speaks a little English and French, too, so you should be okay. Worst case, you can use a translator app." She looks between the two of them, weighing her options. "Lockon, I think it would be a good idea for you to get more experience in the field," she says eventually, "but if you're not comfortable going somewhere so dangerous on your own, we can send Lasse."

Tieria snorts derisively from across the room, but Lockon frowns at Miss Sumeragi—"I can take care of myself," she says, though truthfully, going somewhere dangerous on her own—no matter how prepared for combat she is—does not sound enticing at all. But it needs to be done, and she might as well be the one to do it. If it shuts Tieria up, all the better.

"Ian's been wanting help with the Arms, anyway," Lasse says with a little shrug. "It'd probably be better if I didn't leave for a week while he's working on it."

"All right," Miss Sumeragi says, nodding to Lockon. "We'll meet later today to discuss the particulars—everyone else, prep for the new arrival. Doctor Moreno, I'll need a word with you as well, if you have the time."

The meeting disperses quickly, but Lasse hesitates by the door behind the rest, looking at her—and Lockon moves toward him curiously, wondering whether he wants to say that he's better suited for the job and should go instead. But he only sighs heavily when she approaches, his hands clenching and relaxing in turns as he looks at her. "You'll need to watch your back when you're in Moscow," he says eventually. "The slums of _any_ city aren't pretty, but the HRL's are worse than others."

"Are you worried about me?" she asks, a little amused—but touched, more than anything.

"I just wanna make sure you're careful," he says with a little grin, though he still seems concerned. "We all know you're able to take care of yourself, but Moscow won't be like your home country, or even those guys in America. It'd be pretty lame if you got taken down by some Russian thugs, right?"

Lockon can't help but laugh, despite the sudden dredging up of memories—and she does, hard and loud. Lasse looks a little taken aback as she shoves a fist into her lips, trying to get a hold of herself. "What?" he asks, looking a little worried as he stares down at her, and she shakes her head as she gets her laughter under control.

"You remind me of my brothers," she says eventually, and surely such a small breach of security will be forgiven when they're the only two in the room—when it's the first time she's been reminded of Neil and Lyle, and it made her _laugh._ "I think—they would have liked you."

Lasse blinks at her, unsure, before his face splits into a grin as well. "If they're anything like you, I think I would have liked them back," he says, and Lockon's laugh feels more real than it has in a long time.

.

.

Lockon lands in Moscow with a backpack and a handgun and several layers of winter clothing, and she feels out of place and uncomfortable as she navigates the airport. Enough of the signs are in English that she doesn't get lost, and the cab driver she hails has a translator app on his terminal that allows them to communicate. But as he drives her deeper and deeper into the city, she wonders for the first time whether she's cut out for this.

He drops her off at the hotel she indicates and accepts her money, and then Lockon is alone. It's late, and she won't have any hope of finding one teenager in the dark of a dangerous area—and so she goes to the front desk to retrieve her key, retreating to her room for the night and pinging Miss Sumeragi to let her know she's arrived.

The boy (because that's really what he is) she's supposed to be picking up is a few years younger than her and of Middle Eastern descent—not so much an oddity in the HRL with all those displaced by the Energy Wars, she supposes. The fact that Sumeragi did not mention any languages from that area _is_ a little strange, but it's not the important thing about this mission: Miss Sumeragi had also said that he's likely wary of government or authority in any form—that he is known in what databases he appears in as only "E-0057"—that he is usually not a dangerous person, but if her instincts tell her otherwise, she needs to back off and regroup.

This last part doesn't make a lot of sense to her, and Miss Sumeragi refused to explain (said it was confidential), and she feels a little too much like she's going in blind against someone who could seriously harm her. When she had pointed this out to Miss Sumeragi, though, she had only said that that's going to happen a lot, in her stint as a Gundam Meister—and that she had better get used to it.

The city by daylight isn't much better than it was at dusk; the grime is only more apparent, and Lockon gets strange looks as she wanders the streets, heading toward a dilapidated building that Veda specified as E-0057's home base. (She will not think of him as such, not unless he refers to himself that way.) She finds it easily enough, staying a decent distance away but close enough to see it properly—just like she was taught. Her slight stature attracts muggers just as the handguns prominent on her hips drive them away—and she is not bothered as she leans against a building, supposedly nonchalant as she watches out for this boy.

She doesn't end up waiting too long—he emerges from the front door, his straggly hair unmistakable, and looks around furtively before moving quickly down an alleyway and out of sight. Lockon frowns after him but has no way of keeping up, especially without attracting attention—and then frowns at the building again as several younger children run out as well, scattering down the street in every direction.

This…could be a problem, she realizes, and shoots a quick text to Miss Sumeragi. She had said he might be looking after several children, too young and small and weak for the street gangs, but they had no way of knowing how attached he is to them—and whether they might cause problems in recruiting this kid.

Sumeragi responds immediately— _talk to him alone if you get the chance, see if he's open to joining. We'll take care of the kids if need be. Chris has already contacted an adoption agency in Europe._

Talking to him alone turns out to be more difficult than any of them intended, though; he almost always has a child or two trailing after him on the street, hanging onto his hand or his pant leg—and Lockon grows more and more frustrated as the hours and eventually days go on. It's _cold;_ it's March in Russia, and she's bundled in coats and hats and scarves just to stay marginally warm during this glorified stakeout. Moving around, not staying in one place for too long is important for both subtlety and warmth: if she didn't duck into a run-down diner or corner store every so often, she'd be frozen solid. But she knows she needs to talk to him, and so she will—and eventually, _finally,_ catches him alone in an alleyway one morning.

He's hurrying along, walking away from her, but he is alone—and she calls out to him, hoping he'll hear, hoping he won't react badly. He pauses his step and then only hurries quicker, and she calls after him, louder this time—hoping _hey_ works in whatever language he happens to speak the best.

The kid stops, then, and turns to look at her; his face is stern. He says something in Russian—something harsh, and Amy's face twists. "Do you speak English?" she asks, and his frown grows deeper.

"Little," he says reluctantly. "What do you want? I have no money, no food."

"I don't want to take anything from you," she says. "I want to offer you a job."

His gaze grows a little sharper, at that, and Lockon winces, hoping it wasn't the wrong thing to say. "What job?" he asks, obviously wary, and she takes a tentative step forward, hoping he won't spook or take it as a threat. He's much taller than her though he's a few years younger, and Miss Sumeragi had assured her that he was every bit capable of piloting Kyrios. Taking him down in a fight would be extremely difficult.

"We're a private armed organization that aims to stop warfare and terrorism," she says, the spiel long ingrained in her mind. "If you would like, we want to recruit you to help us."

He frowns at her, unsure, and she realizes some of the words might be beyond his limited vocabulary. "I have a translator," she says, careful not to move her hands – it's in a pocket near one of her guns, after all. "Would you prefer that? You speak Russian, right?"

"Yes," he says, but stiffens when her hand moves toward her phone. She freezes as his own hand reaches into his coat pocket, but he does not draw his own gun as she deliberately pulls out her phone—pulling up the app quickly and holding it in front of her—closing the gap between them by a few more steps.

She repeats the offer, and the kid's confused look takes on a bit of a different timbre. "Are you with the government?" he asks sharply, his grip tightening, but Amy is on a delay—and listens warily while trying to keep an eye on his gun.

"The exact opposite, actually," she says with a little smile. "We're planning to fight the government's armies with our mobile suits to stop the Solar Energy Wars from ever happening again. We could really use your help."

The kid stares at her as the translator works, his face unreadable. "Are you from the Union?" he asks eventually, and Lockon shakes her head.

"We operate out in space, on a private colony—English is just our common language."

He frowns at the mention of space, something passing over his face—though it's difficult to gauge his expression, with his hair so askew. "So you'll take me away," he says eventually. "To work with you, in space."

"Only if you want to," she emphasizes, hoping her tone carries through despite the language barrier. "It's entirely up to you—but we could definitely use your abilities as a pilot. And…" here she hesitates, but decides to go forward with it, "it's gotta be better than living here, right? You'll be warm, and have as much food and money as you'll ever need."

She's mostly winging it here, because she has no knowledge of his background in nearly _anything—_ only confident in what Miss Sumeragi has told her. But she feels sure in assuming that his life here is rough; the kid is rail-thin, and he's only wearing a light jacket in these sub-zero temperatures. Amy's honestly not sure how he hasn't died of frostbite, yet.

"I can't leave the others," he says eventually, though the look on his face is still unreadable. "They're very small—they'll die on the streets, without me."

"We've already contacted an adoption agency in Europe," she says, and watches his face before she continues. "They can be here in the next several days to pick them up and bring them to safety."

The kid blinks at her, something twisting in his face, and she wonders whether the translator's acted up. "Why not me too?" he asks eventually, something different in his tone. "Why can't an adoption group pick _me_ up?"

Lockon grimaces, because he honestly does look like it's what he wants. And if he ultimately turns them down, she'll ask Chris to send the group out anyway—but she sincerely hopes he chooses to join them, instead. "Because you have the ability to change the world," she says emphatically. "You would be a lot of help, to us—your mobile suit is nearly finished, and our commander thinks you're the perfect pilot for it."

He frowns at her, absorbing this, and Lockon waits patiently for his reply. "Mobile suits kill people," he says eventually, and Lockon grimaces.

"You're right," she says, "but we truly believe that forcefully stopping warfare is the only way to change the world. We've all been affected by war in the past—I think you know that the government isn't going to change unless forced. What's happened to all of us—we want to make sure it won't happen to anyone ever again."

It's a gamble, but a Middle Eastern orphan in the middle of the HRL almost _certainly_ was affected by the Solar Energy Wars—and it's a bet she's willing to make. Sure enough, something shifts again in his face—and the edge to his gaze seems to have softened. "You promise me the children will be safe?" he asks after a moment, and Lockon nods—relief coursing through her.

"They'll be picked up within the week—our tickets up to space aren't for another several days, so if you want, you can make sure they're safe before you leave."

"You bought me a ticket already?" he asks sharply, his eyes widening—"Were you going to force me if I said no?"

"Of course not!" Lockon says, her own face falling slack in surprise as she hurries to explain—"It's just, our commander—she was certain you'd say yes, so she sent me down with an extra ticket. I would have cancelled it if you decided not to come."

The kid stares at her for several seconds longer, and then he nods—"I'm not leaving until the others are safe," he says. "And if I don't want to stay, you let me leave your colony."

Lockon grimaces, not really sure how to answer the second half of that—and then figures she'll leave it to Miss Sumeragi to convince him to stay. "Sure," she says, and he relaxes further. She reaches into her other pocket slowly, and he eyes her carefully as she pulls out a cheap, black cell phone. "This is for you," she says, holding it out to him, and he stares at her before taking it from her gloved hand. "The only number in there is mine. I'll be here for several days longer—call me when you're ready to go, and I'll pick you up. Or, if you have any questions, I can answer them."

"All right," he says, staring at the phone for several seconds before tucking it into his pocket. Then he stares at her, his gaze unnerving, and Lockon is tempted to ask him what the problem is when he says, "What's your name?"

"We use codenames in Celestial Being," she says, and his brows furrow. "Mine is Lockon Stratos."

"You gave up your name?" he asks, a little alarmed, and she blinks at him, wondering what the problem is.

"It's for security, so the government can't track us down," she says, and he stares at her. "I'm sure you don't want to go by what you're listed under in their databases, either."

"No," he acknowledges, though there's a frown on his face as he continues, "but my name is very important to me."

So he does have a name beyond E-0057—and Lockon feels relief at that, that he hasn't been known by a code his whole life. "Maybe you can talk with our commander about it," she suggests. If his preferred name isn't known to the government, after all, maybe it won't be such a big deal. "She's very reasonable, I'm sure you can work something out."

He nods a bit, thinking on this, before looking her in the eyes. "My name is Allelujah," he says, his voice a little stronger, and Lockon blinks down her surprise at such a strange name before nodding back to him.

"I look forward to working with you, Allelujah," she says, smiling at him, and is relieved to see him smiling tentatively back.

.

.

The trip up the elevator with Allelujah is a little awkward, but Lockon doesn't mind it—he had called her several days after their conversation, and said in careful, accented English that the other children are safe, that he would like to go with her.

It wasn't that she was expecting him to change her mind—she's just glad he hasn't disappeared on them. A teenager insistent on avoiding the government likely knows how to do so, after all—and she's glad he hasn't decided she's a threat in the interim days.

Their conversation is limited (though navigating through the airport is made easier by his Russian fluency), and he gets progressively stiffer as they make their way closer to the orbital elevator. "Are you all right?" Lockon asks eventually; though she's explained their secrecy rules to him, if there's something that might be a problem, she does need to know.

"Yes," he says, not looking at her and not elaborating, and Lockon frowns at him but figures trying to pry would be useless.

He seems entirely too familiar with the low gravity, with the normal suits, even with the controls of the shuttle as she maneuvers them out of the docking bay, and she watches him out of the corner of her eye as he looks at anything but the starry expanse before them. A war orphan living in the HRL who's been to space before—and had a negative experience? She thinks she'd do a lot to hear the full story, but Tieria would probably murder her for it—so she decides to stay in safe territory.

"Just as a heads up," she says, and he looks up to her quickly as the translator works. "The other pilot, who we're gonna be working alongside, he's…" she struggles for the correct word for a moment, "a little uptight, doesn't make a good first impression. He'll probably be nasty to you, but he's that way to everyone—you shouldn't take it personally."

"Okay," he says, his brows furrowing for a moment. "Who else are we working with?"

She rattles off the rest of the crew quickly—it's small, she knows this, and he seems to recognize it as well. "I thought space colonies had more people," he says cautiously, and Amy nods.

"Krung Thep itself has a much larger population, but our team will be working off our ship, the Ptolemaios, as soon as it's complete. We're the ones who'll be the public face of Celestial Being—the others work mostly behind the scenes."

Allelujah nods, absorbing this, and doesn't say anything else—and Lockon resigns herself to a quiet several hours back out to the colony.

At least he's more reasonable than Tieria.

.

.

.

.

Allelujah's integration into Celestial Being goes both better and worse than Lockon expected.

He is introduced to the rest of the crew the day after they arrive as Allelujah Haptism, and Lockon's glad for him, at least, that he was able to keep his name, no matter what Veda tries to mandate. Tieria had frowned at the name (Lockon's sure it wasn't the planned codename for Kyrios' pilot) but said nothing, and the rest of the crew had greeted him warmly, only scaling back their enthusiasm when they realized he was not able to keep up with their excited chatter.

He picks up English remarkably quickly, though—within a couple of weeks he's mostly fluent, even if his accent is still thick and he often stumbles over words. Miss Sumeragi seems to speak some Mandarin, though, and he spends more time with her than anyone else, the first several weeks.

He's jumpy and quiet, always, and while Lockon had hoped it would improve over time, he seems to stagnate—he dislikes doors closing behind him, does not like sitting in the crowded mess hall, and spends more and more time in the wide-open hangars, working with Ian and Lockon on learning the ropes of his Gundam.

Tieria seems to disapprove of him for no reason Lockon can discern, but he can't seem to fault his work ethic.

It's a few months after Allelujah is recruited, just about a year after Lockon was recruited, when another meeting with Miss Sumeragi appears on her schedule. She arrives in the conference room to see her commander standing there, a little smile on her face as she looks Lockon up and down.

"You've been a lot of help to Allelujah," she says, nodding to her, and Lockon smiles a bit in turn.

"He's eager to learn, and a lot easier to deal with than Tieria," she says, and Miss Sumeragi laughs.

"I think _anyone_ would be easier to work with," she says, though she's clearly remembering that recorded conversation just as well as Lockon. "I thought it was noteworthy, that's all. I think you're going to be a great leader."

Lockon tries not to frown at this—is still, in some corner of her mind, hoping that Exia's pilot will be older and more experienced. Once, this shouldn't have been a difficult task; she's only eighteen, after all, and came to Celestial Being utterly blind. But with the recruitment of steadily younger members, she's starting to doubt herself. "I'd like to give you a week off, if you'll take it," Miss Sumeragi continues, and Lockon blinks, bringing herself back to the conversation at hand. "Two days of travel, five days in Ireland—I know you sent a postcard, when you were in America, but I'm sure your aunt would like to see you in person."

She feels her face flush a bit; she had no idea Miss Sumeragi knew about that quick card, grabbed off an overpriced rack in the airport and sent off the next time she found a mailbox. "She probably would," she says eventually, "but there's things I could be doing here—Allelujah needs a practice partner, and Tieria doesn't have the patience for it."

"Lasse can work with him, or he can work on something else for a week," Miss Sumeragi says dismissively. "If we don't send you to Ireland soon, your aunt might start sending out search parties—you won't want that, right?"

She smiles but only seems to be half joking—and Lockon realizes she has a point. Her aunt has likely looked up space travel regulations—the amount of time required on Earth—and may try calling the authorities if she thinks Amy's being mistreated. "She wouldn't mean anything nasty by it," she says, almost defensive, and Miss Sumeragi laughs again.

"Of course not," she says, "but if the government starts looking for you in their worker databases and comes up empty, that might lead to some nasty questions we'd rather you not have to deal with."

"Yeah," she admits, and can't really find an argument against it that holds any water. "When do you want me to go down, then?"

"Tomorrow, if you're okay with it," she says, and Lockon's brows shoot up.

"I guess," she says, and realizes she doesn't have much time-sensitive work to do, anyway. "If you promise to keep Tieria off my back?"

"I promise," she says, looking amused, and waves Lockon out to get packing.

"Vacation! Vacation!" Haro says, sounding excited as he follows her out the door—and she smiles fondly down at him. It's ridiculous, but she thinks she'll miss this little robot while she's on Earth.

"It's to make my aunt happy," she reminds him, and he razzes for a moment but says nothing else.

Lockon laughs at him, and makes her way quickly back to her cabin.

.

.

Aunt Kathryn cries when she opens the door to see Amy standing on her front porch.

She barely has time to put her bags down before her aunt all but throws herself at her, sobs shaking her shoulders as she holds onto Amy tightly. "It's so good to see you," she says, her voice choked, and Amy returns the hug immediately, rubbing her back, trying to calm her down.

"It's good to see you too," she says honestly. "I'm sorry I couldn't come home earlier—training took a long time, and as soon as that was done, I needed to train one of my coworkers, too."

"It's all right," Aunt Kathryn says immediately, pulling back and looking at Amy's face, cupping it in both her hands. "I'm just—so glad you're home."

"I've got leave until Sunday," she says, and Aunt Kathryn's smile grows even broader. "My boss decided to give me the whole week off to make up for it."

"Even better!" she says, and grabs Amy's suitcase before she can protest, leading the way inside. "I'll call Teresa, she's living across town now, but she might be moving back home because of the…" She cuts herself off, shaking her head sharply—"I guess that's her news to tell, not mine—but let me call her, one second!"

Amy smiles a bit indulgently as she sits on the living room couch, taking everything in. It hasn't changed nearly at all; in fact, Lyle's and Neil's video games and consoles are still hooked up to the TV, in full display, even though Aunt Kathryn had always turned down Amy's offers to play with her. There's photos everywhere: a large one prominently displayed on the mantle of her family, a few months before her birthday—alongside an old one of Aunt Kathryn, her late husband, and baby Teresa.

There's plenty more recent photos, too, and Amy blinks at one that looks to be of Teresa's college graduation. She had been going into elementary education, last she heard, and she supposes she would have graduated recently—but it's not something she's really thought about since she left. "She's on her way over," Aunt Kathryn says, her eyes still bright as she walks over to Amy, sitting close to her on the couch. "Can I get you anything? I haven't eaten dinner yet, we could order in, or I could cook—whatever you want!"

"I could eat," she says, because her last meal was a quick snack at the base of the elevator—and Aunt Kathryn is all smiles as she pulls out her phone, chattering about which restaurants deliver and which are new since she left, what kind of food would you like because I'm really open to anything—

Amy bumps her shoulder, sees how desperate she is for physical contact after a year of separation—and says she'd be happy with whatever her aunt wants.

Teresa arrives before the food does, and Aunt Kathryn waves Amy to answer the door. She hurries to the front hall and swings the door open, and then stills at the sight before her—Teresa is indeed here, all smiles as she sees Amy, but she is clearly very pregnant. Amy had no idea (and supposes she has had no way of knowing, with no contact from her family until today) but she can't help but stare, and Teresa laughs after another moment, reaching to hug Amy—a bit awkwardly, around her stomach, but she tries her best all the same.

"It's good to see you," Amy says when they pull apart, and finds herself blinking away something in her eyes as she smiles up at her cousin. Teresa beams at her, her own eyes bright as she looks Amy up and down.

"You too," she says, her hand lingering on Amy's shoulder. "Mum said you're gonna be here for the rest of the week?"

"Yeah, my boss wanted to let me make up for lost time," she says, and Teresa's smile grows even wider as Amy steps aside, letting her fully into the house. "You're, um…" she hesitates, wanting to bring up the obvious question but not knowing exactly how—and Teresa laughs as she closes the door.

"Due in August," she says. "Andrew was just as surprised as I was, but Mum said she could watch the baby while we work, so I think it'll be okay."

"Congratulations," Amy says honestly, vaguely remembers the name Andrew as her boyfriend from talking occasionally with Teresa, before she left. She feels her smile grow even wider, and is surprised to feel exactly how honest it is. "Your mum's ordered dinner, it should be here soon, I think?"

"Great!" Teresa says, walking into the living room and hugging Aunt Kathryn tightly before sinking into the couch. "So…" she draws out the word, grinning to Amy as she follows and sits in the armchair nearby. "How's space?"

"It's…" she struggles for an explanation, unsure of how to describe it, "it's interesting, I guess? I mean, where I work's very stark, pretty stereotypical sci-fi, but the gravity's pretty cool once you get used to it, and you can't beat the view."

Aunt Kathryn blinks at her, but Teresa only leans forward a bit, looking eager for more; Amy tries to come up with more descriptions that will not compromise her workplace. "I work on a pretty small team," she continues eventually. "There's—ah—a lot of different personalities, but for the most part everyone gets along."

"But you can't tell us about them," Teresa translates, as Amy lets the silence grow a little longer; she grimaces and shakes her head.

"I still don't really understand why they're demanding secrecy from all of us, but it's a really important part of the protocol, I guess?" She shrugs, and her aunt's eyes narrow.

"As long as they're not mistreating you," she says, and Amy frowns at her in turn. "If they're making you promise secrecy just so they can get away with abuse—"

"Mum," Teresa starts, looking surprised, but Amy shakes her head.

"They're not abusing me—I wouldn't have stayed this long if they were," she says, and Aunt Kathryn seems to wonder if leaving is even an _option_ before Amy plows on, "Really, it's the opposite—a couple of the guys are teaching me self-defense, just in case anything _does_ happen. I feel like I've learned a lot, since I moved up there."

Aunt Kathryn frowns at her some more but only rises to her feet as the doorbell rings; their dinner, evidently, is here. Amy turns to her cousin, a little unsure of what to say—but Teresa is still all smiles, clearly just happy to have her home, and asks excitedly whether she thinks she might be able to come home this fall, or at least for Christmas, to meet Andrew and the baby.

Amy knows Miss Sumeragi won't allow her to visit twice so close together—especially as Exia's pilot should be recruited soon—but Teresa looks so excited at the idea that she doesn't have the heart to tell her so. "I'll see what I can do," she says eventually, and her cousin beams.

Aunt Kathryn comes back in, pizza boxes stacked in her arms, as Teresa reaches to give Amy another quick hug. "She says she'll try to be home for Christmas!" she says excitedly to her mum, and Aunt Kathryn smiles warmly to Amy as she sets them down on the coffee table, retreating quickly to the kitchen for plates and napkins.

"That would be great," she says, and whatever suspicion might have been in her eyes before has dissipated, somewhat. "Whenever you're allowed leave, we'll be sure to make time for you."

It might have come off passive-aggressive if Amy didn't know her aunt so well—and they spend the evening laughing in the living room, the others filling Amy in on all that she's missed since she left, and Amy telling what stories she thinks she can get away with of her own escapades. They're up probably later than any of them should be, but Amy certainly doesn't mind it as she finally retreats upstairs around midnight, only bothering to pull her pajamas and her bear out of her luggage before settling down into her bed and falling quickly asleep.

.

.

A year of early alarms has conditioned her to be up by Earth's sunrise, and Amy feels a bit groggy and uncoordinated in the heavy gravity as she rolls over, pulls her blanket closer to her chin, and tries to remember what's going on.

Ireland. Right. A trip to see her family—who she thinks she's missed more than she realized.

She drags herself out of bed, wiping at her eyes and running a hand through her hair (wondering if she'll be able to get it cut before she goes back to space) as she pulls clothes at random out of her bag, walking slowly toward the bathroom.

Her aunt is in the kitchen when she goes downstairs, scrolling through something on her phone, but she looks up, her face brightening when she sees Amy. "You're up early," she says, pushing the box of cereal toward the chair she's always used as Amy sits down.

"The station starts early," Amy shrugs, grabbing a bowl and starting to pour cereal. "After a year of being to work by seven, I guess it's kinda ingrained."

"I bet," Aunt Kathryn says, and she looks impressed as Amy starts to eat. "I'm surprised you've adjusted to it—you've always loved sleeping in, you know?"

"I have some persistent alarm clocks," she says, laughing a little, thinking of Haro (who will physically bother her until she gets out of bed) and Tieria (who starts banging on her door the moment he realizes she's late to the hangar). "And if I sleep in too long, I won't get breakfast, so…"

"So you're in dorm-style housing?" Aunt Kathryn asks, and Amy blinks at her, trying to figure out her angle. Probably, she wants to make sure Amy's safe, or wants to try and get as much information as she can about her place of work.

"Yeah," she says, and swallows a mouthful of cereal before continuing, "space is pretty tight—it's not like everyone can have their own apartment."

"True," Aunt Kathryn says, staring rather blankly at her—and then she blinks, focusing on Amy again. She frowns, wondering what's up. "Is that a new shirt?" her aunt asks. Amy blinks and looks down at her tank top—which, she realizes, is one that Chris insisted she buy while in America.

"Yeah," she says, and Aunt Kathryn looks more skeptical still. "We—a couple others and I—we got sent to Earth for a supply run a few months ago, and we got a few extra days off, so…we ended up going shopping."

Aunt Kathryn blinks several more times, glancing to the postcard displayed prominently on the fridge before her face splits into a warm smile. "I'm glad you've made friends," she says. "I was worried you'd have trouble, with being so young, and…well," she cuts herself off, though Amy knows exactly what she's talking about. It's not as if she's tried very hard to make friends on Earth for the last several years.

"Yeah, it was a girl about my age and her little sister," she says, and figured such a breach of security and small lie will be forgiven when her aunt seems so heartened by the news. "She's—well, she decided we were friends the night I showed up. I didn't have a lot of choice."

She can't find it in her to regret it, though, and Aunt Kathryn sees it clearly on her face—and she laughs. "Can I see a picture?" she asks, a little quieter, as if Miss Sumeragi or Tieria could hear her. "I mean, they're your friends, right? What kind of security breach would that even be?"

Amy hesitates, at that, one hand going to the phone in her pocket. Truly, it wouldn't hurt anything—especially because Chris insisted on plenty of selfies while on Earth, in dressing rooms and at meals and just because, that couldn't possibly compromise anything but their faces. Tieria would skin her if he saw this, but she decides that she doesn't care as she pulls her phone out of her pocket and scrolls through her gallery. Most of them are useless: quick pictures of pieces she needed to work on or strings of numbers she needed for a project halfway across the station—a few pictures of herself and Haro—but it doesn't take long at all to get to photos from this past winter.

There's several dozen, and she scrolls through them, squinting a bit at the thumbnails to try and find one her aunt would like. Eventually she settles on one of the three of them, their faces squashed together to fit in the frame; Feldt looks a little uncomfortable as the three of them sip hot cocoa in a café near the mall.

Aunt Kathryn beams when Amy hands her the phone, and she drinks in the image for several seconds before handing her the phone back, clearly restraining herself from scrolling through the rest. "That girl's hair is…bright," she says, settling on clearly the least offensive adjective she can think of, and Amy laughs, stowing her phone back into her pocket.

"I don't know where she gets her dye, but it's impressive," she agrees, and Aunt Kathryn stares at her. "What?" she asks after several more seconds, and she doesn't reply for long enough that Amy starts to wonder if there's something seriously wrong.

"You're happy, up there," she says eventually, and her eyes are bright as she reaches for Amy's hands, across the table. "I haven't seen you this happy since your parents and brothers were still alive."

Amy stills, staring at her aunt, and then takes an inventory of the past year—and realizes that she's likely right. "I was worried, when you said you were going to space for work," she continues, "that you weren't stable enough to be away from home. But I think being away from everything has been good for you."

"I think so," Amy agrees, squeezing her aunt's hands gently. "Having work to do and a goal, I think it's what I needed."

"What _is_ your goal?" she asks, gentle pressure behind her voice as she stares at Amy. "What are you _doing_ in space? I know you're eighteen now, but I also know you'd never join the military. And anything else requires all sorts of degrees, you know?"

"I can't tell you," she says, her face falling apologetically as Aunt Kathryn sighs. "All I can say is that I really think we're changing the world, with this work."

Aunt Kathryn squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, and when they open again, Amy can see acceptance and fear in equal parts. "You never promised me that you'd be safe," she says quietly, "only that you'd be happy. Can you change that yet?"

"Nothing is ever safe," Amy says, thinking of a shopping mall and teenagers on their day off and families torn apart. It hurts, but not as much as she's expecting. "But I'll do my best to stay out of trouble."

Aunt Kathryn sighs, and squeezes her hands before releasing her grip. "I guess that's all I can ask," she says, though there's a little smile on her face as she reaches up to rub at her eyes. "You always were too stubborn for your own good."

.

.

She spends most of that afternoon in the cemetery, thinking rather absurdly that she needs to make up for lost time as she settles carefully against the headstone. It's been well cared for, the weeds pulled and the flowers vibrant and the stone clean; she means to thank Aunt Kathryn for it when she gets home.

It's…different than it used to be, she thinks, sitting here and staring at the grass. It's been a year since she last visited, and she's changed—for the better, she hopes. Though it's a comfort, being near to her family the only way she can, it's not the only thing keeping her going, anymore.

When she looks to their names on the stone, the _16 September 2297_ engraved there sends a pit dropping through her gut—but the accompanying panic she has come to expect does not arrive alongside it. She squeezes her eyes shut, leans her head against the stone, and cannot bring herself to move for several moments.

It's been seven years. Almost eight, she realizes, and curls into herself a little tighter at that. She realizes that she cannot spend the rest of her life grieving her family, but the thought of forgetting them—of moving on with her life when they never got to live theirs—is foreign and frightening, and she's not sure that it's what she wants. She loves her parents and brothers like she has never loved anything else on this Earth, and it feels like abandoning them—it feels like leaving them behind—and she would never do that.

The fact that Aunt Kathryn tells her that it's what they would have wanted—that, on some level, she knows she's right—complicates things a bit.

She talks to them for a long time that afternoon, about Chris and Feldt and Tieria and Allelujah and the rest of her friends on the Ptolemy. The cemetery is quiet, and there is no one nearby; there is no danger in speaking aloud of Celestial Being's secrets when the only ones listening are the dead. She tells her brothers of Tieria's latest ridiculous assertion, tells her dad about Doctor Moreno and Ian and how she thinks they would have gotten along well—tells her mother of all her worries for her friends and their well-being, how she cannot do anything to help when she cannot know why they are traumatized in the first place.

She knows she needs to try, because Miss Sumeragi is nearly always right. If she says Lockon will be the leader of the Gundam Meisters, then she'd better get over her insecurities and make sure she can convince Tieria and Allelujah not to kill each other before their armed interventions have even started.

She talks until her voice is hoarse and tears are prickling at her eyes, and then she stands up, wiping at her eyes with one hand while the other lingers on the stone. "I love you guys," she says very quietly, wishing she could hear it back. "I hope—I hope you can forgive me, for what I'm going to do."

It's not avenging them; it's not memorializing them; it's not working herself through her own problems. She's still not sure why she's agreed to pilot a mobile suit and kill soldiers and terrorists around the world, but she has made her peace with it—and she hopes that her family would not hate her, should they see what she's become.

There is no response; the cemetery is quiet, and the sun is lowering in the west. She shoves a fist against her mouth, tries not to sob, and walks away toward the gate.

.

.

.

.

It's nearly a year later that Exia's pilot is finally brought to Krung Thep.

He's the talk of the station—the last Gundam Meister, the one with the seven swords and the expertise in hand-to-hand combat, surpassing even Tieria—who seems angrier and angrier about this, every time someone brings it up within earshot.

Lockon's interested in meeting him, if only for that last shred of hope that she might not be in charge after all.

But Miss Sumeragi calls her Meisters to an observation room the evening after Lasse brings him up, and Lockon follows Tieria and Allelujah into the room overlooking their Gundams, wondering why he isn't meeting the rest of the crew at the same time. She thinks she realizes when she gets a good look at the kid beside Miss Sumeragi.

Her jaw falls open a bit, though she does a better job of hiding her dismay than Allelujah and Tieria—who start shouting denials as soon as they lay eyes on the kid. He's small—maybe Feldt's height, and barely older than her, too. His expression is unreadable as he stares down the three of them, and Lockon realizes with some dread that they've likely recruited yet another orphan of the Solar Energy Wars.

Two Middle Eastern teenagers destroyed by their countries' warfare, and an Irishwoman ruined by those same armies. She supposes that Veda really must know how to pick its Meisters, after all.

"This is Setsuna F. Seiei," Miss Sumeragi says loudly over the others' complaints, and Setsuna's gaze flickers up to her before returning to his fellow pilots, his face utterly blank though his eyes are sharp. "He'll be piloting Exia."

"Veda approved his appointment?" Tieria asks harshly, and Lockon frowns a bit at him before glancing back to Setsuna. A small frown is on his face as well as he stares at Tieria, and she wonders suddenly how much English he speaks. If he's anything like Allelujah…

"Of course," Miss Sumeragi says immediately, frowning as well. Lockon glances between the other four—Allelujah looks genuinely distressed at the kid's age, while Tieria seems more skeptical of his skill—and she figures, if nothing else, she should probably throw him a bone.

"What's the problem?" she asks, taking a step forward, and Setsuna's gaze snaps to her. "We're all here because we've dedicated our lives to Celestial Being, right?"

Setsuna frowns at her, absorbing her words, before he says, "Who are you?"

He's hit puberty, at least, and for this Lockon is thankful—but his English is horribly accented, and she hopes he'll be as quick to pick it up as Allelujah and Lichty were. "My codename's Lockon Stratos," she says, and takes another step toward him. "You want to change the world with your Gundam, right?"

His eyes brighten at _Gundam,_ and Lockon wonders at such a strong reaction but cannot ask. "Yes," he says, something else behind his voice though his face is as blank as ever, and Lockon feels a smile growing at that as she turns to Miss Sumeragi.

"Good enough for me," she says, crossing her arms, and the kid only continues to stare at her. "When's he starting?"

"Tomorrow," Miss Sumeragi says, her eyebrows rising a bit as she stares at Lockon. "He'll have a Haro to show him around and translate, but we shouldn't waste any time in training him."

Tieria snorts derisively beside her, and Lockon shoots him a sharp look before turning back to the kid. "You want a tour?" she asks, and he stares blankly at her. "Orange Haro can translate," she continues, gesturing to the little robot close behind her. "I'll show you the Gundams up close, if you want."

Something passes over his face again, though he's obviously better about hiding it than last time. "Yes," he says, and Tieria snorts again, turning and coasting away from the conversation without another word.

Allelujah's forehead is creased in concern as he watches Setsuna move toward Lockon, but he doesn't say anything else contrary; he only introduces himself, explaining that he's piloting Kyrios and that they'll be working together closely.

Setsuna listens to the translation carefully (his brows creasing at points, and Lockon wonders whether he speaks a dialect of the language—Arabic? Kurdish?—that Haro hasn't calibrated to yet) but nods sharply, not saying anything in reply.

Allelujah's brows rise a bit, but he only hesitates before waving to the three of them, saying he'll be in the hangar tomorrow if they need him.

Setsuna is obviously uncomfortable in the gravity as they leave Miss Sumeragi behind, and Lockon watches in some concern as he jumps at the automatic doors, the elevators they take down to the ground level of the hangars. "You'll get used to everything pretty quick," she says, and he stares at her as Haro translates. "I'd never been to space before either, when I got recruited. But the low gravity is pretty useful for a lot of things."

Setsuna nods, and seems to make an effort not to seem so uncomfortable. Lockon would laugh if she weren't hyperaware of what such an action means. He's not at ease here, on a level even beyond Allelujah—and she wonders how she can convince him that whatever warzone he grew up in is far away, when she's sure he's haunted by his past just as much as the rest of them. She figures talking about the suits is probably a safe bet. "Your Gundam is called Exia," she explains, and he stares at her. "It specializes in hand-to-hand combat—Miss Sumeragi said you're quite good at it, from what she's seen."

Setsuna frowns at her. "I can fight," he says, his tone almost a challenge though it's delivered to her in Haro's monotone, and she frowns right back—wondering what exactly he's getting at.

"I know, that's why you were recruited," she says, and wonders how he could have misconstrued her comment before deciding to just continue. "You're going to be our close-range fighter. I specialize in sniping, so we're going to be paired on missions a lot—our fighting styles will work well together on the battlefield."

He stares at her even after Haro has finished translating, and she tries not to sigh before continuing, "Tieria—he's the one with the purple hair—pilots Virtue, the heavy-artillery unit. He and Allelujah will be working together often. Kyrios is a blitz unit, so he'll be able to get in close and operate around Tieria's shots."

Setsuna frowns as he absorbs all of this, and nods when the translation is finished—but still says nothing. "Don't be too offended by Tieria," she says as the elevator dings, letting them out into the hangar holding all four units. "He's like that to everyone—I've known him for two years, and I've heard him say something nice exactly once."

She still doesn't quite believe that conversation happened, even though she was a part of it—and Lichty still brings it up, from time to time. She doubts they're going to get a repeat performance anytime soon. "So—" she starts, preparing to introduce him to the Gundams by name, but she realizes that he has not followed her into the huge room.

She turns with a frown to see him standing just outside the elevator doors, the first true emotion she's seen on his face this whole time as he stares up at the Gundams. It's something approaching awe, his eyes wide and mouth slightly open, and she hesitates before deciding to give him a moment. None of the others have had this kind of reaction to the Gundams, but it seems like he at least has some positive association with the word—and she thinks it probably had a good amount to do with his agreeing to join.

If he's so entranced with the suits, she supposes, that's as good a reason as any to pilot one.

"Setsuna," she calls, a little softer, after several more seconds—and he jumps, looking sharply to her again, clearly trying to wipe the expression off his face. "You can get closer to look at them, if you'd like. You won't be able to run any simulations for a while, but that doesn't stop you from looking."

He stares at her before pushing off tentatively in her direction, wobbly and unsure in the gravity—and Lockon puts out a hand to catch him, but he stops himself on a railing instead, staring up at the nearest machine. "This is Dynames," she says, "my Gundam. Exia's over there." She points to the Gundam standing next to hers, and Setsuna maneuvers himself carefully to see it better, his eyes lighting up at the sight.

"My Gundam," he says softly, in English, though he does not move closer. Lockon hesitates a moment before pushing off, looking for a spare Haro to lend him until he learns the ropes.

It doesn't seem like he's going anywhere, after all—and even though she's horrified at his apparent age and what this means for herself, she has to admit that he'll probably fit in all right around here.

.

.

That doesn't stop her from banging on Miss Sumeragi's cabin door half an hour later, after she's retrieved Red Haro and assigned him to Setsuna, showing the kid to the living quarters and explaining the basics before leaving him to his own devices.

When she let him into his room, there was no luggage—just like Allelujah—and she winces, wondering how long it'll take before Chris drags him shopping to fill out his wardrobe. Above all, though, she worries for what this implies about his background—likely an orphan of the conflicts in the Middle East (Miss Sumeragi said he was living in Azadistan), likely living on the streets. A young kid like him definitely should not know how to defend himself so well—at least not so well as to be earmarked by the most powerful supercomputer on the planet—and her knocking is probably louder than it should be as she waits impatiently for Miss Sumeragi to answer.

Her commander opens the door soon enough, a drink held loosely in her hand and her eyes tired as she stares at Lockon. "Took you longer than I thought it would," she says, and Lockon's mouth opens in silent outrage—but she doesn't have anything to really say in reply. "Come in," Sumeragi says, gesturing to the extra chair in her room as she moves to her desk. Lockon does not sit.

"How _old_ is he?" she demands, the first thought out of her mouth, the thing that most horrifies her of this whole situation.

"That's classified," Miss Sumeragi says, though it's accompanied by a deep drink, and Lockon hopes in some petty corner of her mind that she's regretting this. "He's older than Feldt, I'll tell you that much."

"Feldt has barely started puberty," Lockon counters with, her face twisting, and Miss Sumeragi sighs.

"His scores are within accepted parameters," she says. "His fighting is scrappy, but he'll learn to polish it. He knows what he's doing—he won't hold the rest of you back."

"That's not what I'm worried about," Lockon snaps, and she feels her fists clenching despite herself as she stares at her commander—as close to insubordination as she thinks she's ever come. "He's just a _kid_ —when I was his age—"

"When you were his age, you had led a vastly different life to his," Sumeragi finishes for her, her grip tightening a bit on her tumbler. "Setsuna has as much right to his Gundam as you do yours. His age has nothing to do with his position in Celestial Being."

"Maybe it _should,_ " she snarls. "I'm barely nineteen, and you expect me to lead the others? I've never been a leader in my _life_ —"

"I'm twenty-four," Miss Sumeragi says loudly, and Lockon stops short, "and I swore I'd never be a leader again. But Celestial Being needs a tactical forecaster just as much as it needs a pilot for Dynames, so here I am—in charge of _all of you_. I thought you'd be able to step up to the task—I don't want to find out what happens if I'm wrong."

Lockon's jaw works; Miss Sumeragi's right, and she knows it, but she still can't accept this—the kid looks younger than her brothers were, and the fact that he's qualified to pilot a Gundam at that age is—

"Can I trust you?" Miss Sumeragi asks, cutting through her thoughts, and Lockon stares at her. "As much as the others excel at piloting, I wouldn't trust any of them to lead. If you aren't up to the task, I'm sure we can train Lasse up in Dynames within two years—he wouldn't be as good a sniper, but at least we'd have our Meisters as a cohesive team."

Lockon's face contorts as she digests the obvious threat behind her words. Sumeragi does not break eye contact. "Of course you can trust me," she bites out. "I'm just not comfortable with Celestial Being using _child soldiers_ to take on the entire world."

Miss Sumeragi's eyes darken, and she looks down as she takes another drink. "I'm afraid the world hasn't left us much of a choice."

.

.

Lockon knows that Miss Sumeragi's right, as the months pass, but it doesn't make her feel any better about the situation.

The rest of the crew had about the same reaction, when Setsuna was formally introduced to them. Ian's face had turned a bit stony as he stared at the kid who's probably only a few years older than his daughter; even Chris had seemed tentative at his introduction, as if unsure whether it was a joke.

His simulator scores have put any mumblings of a mistake to rest, and Miss Sumeragi's right—his fighting has markedly improved since the first time he stepped into Exia. But the fact remains that he's nothing more than a kid—and no matter how able he is in his Gundam, Lockon's not sure she'll ever be comfortable with his appointment to such a dangerous job.

His English improves quickly enough (though his reports to Veda, evidently, are less than stellar—if Tieria's glowers are anything to go by) and soon he's left Red Haro back in the hangars, able to navigate the colony and its occupants on his own. He still doesn't speak much, his face ever blank as he listens to orders and then follows them without a word—and what tentative attempts at friendship or at least camaraderie Lockon has extended have been utterly rebuffed.

Lockon's worried enough about this that she has to admit Miss Sumeragi's right—without a clear leader, the other three will never form any sort of functional team. She's pulled apart near-fistfights between Tieria and Setsuna (caused in equal part by Tieria saying the other doesn't deserve his Gundam, and by Setsuna questioning Veda's authority and even intelligence), and Allelujah seems just unstable enough that she's seriously concerned for his well-being. She's walked in on him talking to an empty room more than once—and though she certainly enjoys his company and trusts him to pilot Kyrios alongside her, she's refrained from asking Miss Sumeragi about it only because she knows she will not get an answer.

She assumes her role not without thought, or without regrets, but with the knowledge that it's the only way Celestial Being will ever succeed. It's the right thing to do for her friends and their shared mission, and so she does without further question.

She asks Miss Sumeragi one evening if she could at least call her aunt, that September, because it's been over a year since she saw them, and she's realizing that she misses her family more than she thought she would. "I don't need to fly home," she says as Miss Sumeragi hesitates, obviously considering their looming deadline and all of the work left to do. "I just...my cousin had a baby last year—she was pregnant when I was visiting—and I think it'd mean a lot to her if we could talk. Just for an hour or two?"

Miss Sumeragi's face softens a little, and she nods as Lockon beams at her. "As long as you're in an empty room, I don't see why not," she says with a little smile. "Haro can set you up a secure connection. I'm not one to try and isolate you, especially from something as exciting as a baby."

Lockon's smile grows even wider, and she yells a quick _thank you_ over her shoulder as she hurries down the hall, searching out a deserted conference room. Haro follows behind her, beeping quietly in her wake.

She finds a room soon enough, grabbing a chair and pulling out her phone. She looks up to Haro brightly, waiting for him to encrypt the line properly so she can dial her aunt. She punches it in as soon as Haro beeps at her that everything's green—and she flips on her video, double-checking the stark wall behind her as she listens to it ring.

Her aunt picks up, her video off and her voice a little wary as she says, "Hello?"

"Hey, Aunt Kathryn, it's me," she says, her smile growing broader as her aunt inhales sharply—and after a couple of seconds, she's enabled video transmission, her face open in surprise as it appears on Amy's phone. "What's up?"

"I thought you couldn't make any phone calls to Earth!" she says, her voice a little shrill and obviously surprised as she turns and yells for Teresa, down the hall.

"My commander decided to set me up a special connection, since I can't come home anytime soon," she says, a little apologetically, but movement distracts her as Teresa moves into frame. Sure enough, there's a baby on her hip—a little boy in overalls, about a year old, with dark, curly hair and wide eyes as he stares at Aunt Kathryn's phone.

"Amy!" Her cousin's voice is surprised but pleased as she rushes forward to better sit in frame. "How're you doing?"

"I'm good," she says, and finds herself making a silly face at the little boy, despite herself. She hasn't had a lot of exposure to babies, but Teresa's is _completely_ adorable. "Work's ramping up, but it's nothing I can't handle. I told my boss you had a baby, and she couldn't come up with any more excuses not to let me call, so…"

"It's great to see you," Teresa says brightly, repositioning the baby on her lap and leaning even closer. "You look good, are you growing your hair out again?"

"Out of necessity," she says with a little laugh, tugging at a strand that's prone to falling in her eyes. "We're so short-staffed that we don't have a barber on the entire station—if I want it cut, I need to do it myself."

Teresa laughs, and so does her mother—her face relaxing even further. Aunt Kathryn looks older than she did, last year; her hair is mostly gray now, and there are a few more lines on her face than Amy remembers. But she looks happy and healthy, and Amy can't ask for anything more as her aunt shoots off several rapid-fire questions about her well-being.

Amy laughs at her and assures her that she's fine, asking in return who the new arrival is—and Teresa brightens, reaching to try and pat down the unruly hair on her son's head.

"His name's Peter, after Dad," she says, her voice warm and expression fond as she looks down at him. "He just turned a year a couple of weeks ago, and Mum says he's just as annoying as we were when we were kids."

"Then he's keeping you busy," Amy laughs—remembers the stories her parents and aunt used to tell of how awful the four of them used to be—and is surprised at how little it hurts. "He's adorable—you did good, Teresa."

"Thanks," she says, looking back up to Amy with a smile as her grip on Peter tightens a bit. "Andrew'd love to meet you, but he's out of town for work—you'll just need to visit again when you can, all right?"

"I'll do my best," she says, her smile dimming a little; she knows she can promise nothing when their planned debut is in only eighteen months. Her family seems to pick up on this—Teresa's face falls a bit though she says nothing about it, and Aunt Kathryn hesitates before turning the subject—

"So, do you have any plans for next week?" she asks, and Amy blinks, trying to remember her schedule and whether there's any particular holiday of note coming up.

"Not much," she says, and her aunt's brows rise a bit. "We've got some team-building exercises planned, some of the others really need it—and I think I'm scheduled on some maintenance duties? Nothing special at all."

Her aunt hesitates, and even Teresa blinks at her in something like concern. "I'm glad," Aunt Kathryn says eventually, something different in her voice and her eyes as she smiles at Amy. "Just keep working hard, all right? You promised me you'd change the world."

Amy blinks but nods gamely, glad her aunt isn't going to press the subject—and the conversation wanders for another solid hour before Haro beeps softly at her from across the room. She looks at the time—and jumps at how late it's gotten.

"I'm gonna need to go to bed soon," she says apologetically, glancing to Peter, who's already asleep in Teresa's arms. "But I'll—see what I can do about a visit, and maybe regular phone calls every couple months, if I can, all right?"

"That would be wonderful," her aunt says, her face creasing into another smile. "Be safe, okay? Go get some sleep—it was great to see you."

Teresa nods, her eyes a little bright as she stares at Amy. "I love you," she says, her voice cracking a little, and Amy pulls her phone a little closer, wishing she could hug them both.

"I love you guys too," she says quietly, and soon the line disconnects.

.

.

She doesn't think on her aunt's odd question again until the end of next week, when she comes to bed after a long day and realizes that it's September 17.

Her gut reaction is horror, that she managed to forget her birthday and everything that comes along with it. She's forgotten her family and their last day on this earth, nine years ago now—and the guilt is overwhelming and sudden as she sits harshly on her bed, reaching automatically for the bear atop her pillow.

They're gone—they've been gone for almost a decade—and they may or may not continue to watch over her. (Her parents' religion, after all, has no real place in Celestial Being—though Amy doesn't think she's let go of it entirely.) But whether or not her parents and brothers are in Heaven, they are long past her own reach...and memorializing them is all she can do for them, anymore.

Remembering them on her birthday had seemed the most basic of these tasks, and now she has failed in even this.

She feels guilt, first and foremost, but upon reflection this feels more like a reflex. She misses her parents and brothers, loves them with every fiber of her heart, and would give up everything in an instant to have them back—but while she thinks the pain will never go away, it is not so all-consuming as it once was. It's strange, and a little terrifying, but—

She wonders if this is what Aunt Kathryn meant when she said "new normal," when she said "you'll be all right." On some level it feels like a betrayal of her family, but on another—more rational—one, it feels like living her life the way her parents would have wanted for her. Safe and happy, her aunt said—and though she still cannot promise the first, she's starting to realize that she's recognizing happiness in her thoughts and actions like she has not since she was a child.

It's not a new family she's won for herself, up here in space amongst broken terrorists and children too young to be fighting. But she thinks of Chris and Feldt and the laughter they've drawn from her like no one else has; she thinks of Lasse and Lichty and the way they'd get along so well with her brothers; she thinks of her fellow pilots and Miss Sumeragi and Ian and Doctor Moreno, and then thinks that she's found the closest thing to a family she's ever going to have again.

They'll never replace her real family, nor will they usurp her aunt and cousin on Earth—but they are important to her and to what she hopes to achieve in a way no one else has ever been. Her family in Ireland is too peaceful; they've seen some of the worst humanity has to offer, have survived senseless death and terrorism—and have decided that they are not the ones to prevent the world from doing it all over again. They have moved on with their lives; Teresa, even, is settling down with a boyfriend and a child in a way Amy could never do herself. She realizes, suddenly, that bringing new life into this world—a little boy unstained by the horrors of humanity, named to memorialize someone who is loved but has passed on—may be bringing change, in its own way.

But babies and peaceful protests and other such methods will never be enough for her, anymore. She respects her family's decisions, but she needs to force the world off its axis—change things so drastically that humanity will never be the same. She doesn't mean to exact revenge, destroy the world that has destroyed her—she means to ensure she builds a world her family would want to live in...a world in which no one else survives what she has been forced to endure. If that means she must kill, so be it; if that means she must become hated by the rest of the world, she finds it will be worth it—so long as humanity stops its awful spiral.

Amy thinks on this, the path she has chosen, and wonders again whether her parents would approve—whether her brothers would do the same, were they in her place.

Lockon realizes, for the first time, that she thinks she knows the answer.

* * *

 _Summary of scene mentioned at the top: Lockon, Chris, and Feldt go shopping that weekend; on the tail end of their trip, they're verbally harassed by two men in the parking lot. Lockon threatens one with a gun after he tries to grab her, and they're scared off; all three are shaken by the entire episode and decide to skip their dinner reservations._


End file.
